Orlando Sentinel: Contractors urge government to help revive building boom

From Orlando Sentinel:

As many as two-thirds of the nation's nonresidential builders are likely tocut their payrolls this year, unless billions of dollars worth of federalspending can be unleashed quickly to boost the economy and keep unemploymentfrom rising, particularly in states such as Florida, the nation's leadingcommercial-construction trade group said Thursday. Associated GeneralContractors of Americais lobbying for government spending on roads, bridges, schools and otherinfrastructure as a way to quickly spread economic benefits throughout thenation. But Congress and the states must move fast, it said. "Florida has been ahotbed of construction," but the residential side has gone cold and nowthe commercial side is cooling off as well, said Ken Simonson, the tradegroup's chief economist. Florida has lost morethan 156,000 construction jobs since the highpoint of the building boom in July 2006, he said --more than 24 percent of the segment's peak work force.