President Barack Obama used the term shovel ready to describe projects for his stimulus plan on a Meet the Press interview on December 6, 2008.

A project is considered shovel ready if it has advanced to the stage that laborers may immediately be employed to start work. The term is used in reference to projects which are candidates for economic stimulus spending: money put into a shovel ready project will have a more immediate impact on the economy than money spent on a project on which a great deal of time must elapse for architecture, zoning, legal considerations or other such factors before labor can be deployed on it.

Much deeper in debt, but, at least we aren’t in a depression!! HUH????