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President Barack Obama's plan to spend $50 billion to renovate roads, railways and airport runways sounds like a great plan to improve this country's crumbling transportation infrastructure while providing jobs for hundreds of thousands of unemployed Americans.
Too bad it won't ever see the light of day unless Americans question the sudden urge of some politicians to be fiscal conservatives.
The AP writes:
Administration officials said the transportation plan's initial $50 billion would be the beginning of a six-year program of transportation improvements, but they did not give an overall figure. The proposal has a longer-range focus than last year's economic stimulus bill, which was more targeted on immediate job creation.
The plan calls for rebuilding 150,000 miles of roads; building and maintaining 4,000 miles of rail lines and 150 miles of airport runways, and installing a new air navigation system to reduce travel times and delays. Obama also called for a permanent funding mechanism, an infrastructure bank, to focus on paying for national and regional infrastructure projects. Officials provided few details of how the bank would work.
As several devastating accidents show, this country's transportation infrastructure is crumbling before our eyes. Witness the 2007collapse of the I-35 W bridge in Minnesota.
According to the Pew Research Center, one in four of this country's 600,000 bridges need major repair or are carrying more traffic than they are supposed to, and a third of our major roadways are in substandard condition.
And have you taken a flight recently and sat on the runway for an hour or more? Our airports are filling to capacity while the air traffic controllers tasked with averting mid-air collisions are working with equipment from the 1970s.
"It's a plan that says, even in the aftermath of the worst recession in our lifetimes, America can still shape our own destiny, we can still move this country forward, we can still leave our children something better - something that lasts," the president said in a Labor Day speech in Milwaukee.
But Republicans are already criticizing the plan, saying America doesn't have the money to spend.
Check out the predictable responses from Senate and House Republican leaders:
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said the plan "should be met with justifiable skepticism." He said it would raise taxes while Americans are "still looking for the 'shovel-ready' jobs they were promised more than a year ago" in the $814 billion economic stimulus measure. The House Republican leader, John Boehner of Ohio, added "We don't need more government 'stimulus' spending. We need to end Washington Democrats' out-of-control spending spree, stop their tax hikes, and create jobs by eliminating the job-killing uncertainty that is hampering our small businesses."
These comments are crazy, especially coming from Republicans, who are seeking to preserve tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and companies, who are profitable and flush with cash. These companies have not even begun the hiring that could improve our overall economic well-being.
A frustrated Obama let his guard down for a moment and said:
"They talk about me like a dog."
And then he attacked Republicans for criticizing every proposal without presenting viable alternatives.
The Republican slogan should be "No, we can't," Obama said. "If I said fish live in the sea, they'd say no."
He's right, and comments from the president aren't going to change that.
To me, this isn't even a political issue. Where are the millions of unemployed and underemployed Americans who could benefit from some of these proposals? Where are the Americans who drive these roads and see the terrible conditions? Where are the unemployed construction workers who would like to keep their homes?
Until those people speak up, nothing is going to change.
Comments: (8)
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By: R. CAMERON on 9/07/2010 5:02PM
"They talk about me like a dog " Most dog owners love their pets and think of them as their children. That statement was an insult to dogs. I wish dogs could vote because they're smarter than the people that put Obama into office.
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By: Agent2k38 on 9/07/2010 5:17PM
What and where did the 750 billion stimulus money do besides nothing? We do not need another stimulus, spendulus, taxus action. The Congress need to amend the Constitution allowing states to submit budgets ever five years rather than annually. Federal bureacracies are killing businesses forcing them to move overseas. To fix this economy does not require one dime of tax payer money........ all it requires less govt regulation on non-financial institutions. Goods and Service providers need less govt requlation and complaince.
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By: BillSchrier on 9/07/2010 5:43PM
Speaking of the Constitution, it's time the 10th amendment were observed, which makes all this wasteful "stimulus" spending unconstitutional, just as Obamacare is unconstitutional, not to mention a waste of money.
There is hope ... Republicans are set to take back Congress in November. Once they do, they can INVESTIGATE Obama for all his frauds and illegal actions, and if we're lucky get him impeached so we don't have to wait for 2012 to get rid of him. Otherwise, I guarantee Obama will be so unpopular by 2012 that another Democrat (probably Hilary) will pick him off in the 2012 primaries. Not that Hilary would be much better than Obama, they are both hardcore socialists.
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By: BillSchrier on 9/07/2010 5:25PM
White House Panicking over Elections; Dem Congressmen running away from Obama!!! lol! :)
Read the CBS story here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/09/05/ftn/main6837589.shtml
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By: BillSchrier on 9/07/2010 7:13PM
Another party at the White House, this time with bumps and grinds:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100907/ap_on_en_ot/us_white_house_dance_1
What a tawdry couple the Obama's are, absolutely no class or sense of elegance.
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By: gerald on 9/07/2010 10:21PM
Just another payoff to the unions who will turn around and donate the money to the dems party,payoffs.
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By: william on 9/08/2010 9:33AM
peoples have been ripping, off the goverment,since the start ,farm gift, student loan never paid back,tax cheats,off shore fraud,right wing radio
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By: dawggybon on 9/11/2010 10:24AM
Obama's legion of blind supporters are jumping ship. The remaining die-hards are either uninformed idiots or entitlement parasites waiting for Obamanation to give them other people's money! Regardless of the nature of their dysfunction they can vote which is a compelling reason for the return of voter literacy testing. He's proven to be an arrogant fool with no obvious abilities other than reading teleprompters, lying to the citizenry of this country and crippling taxpayers for generations to come with obscene spending on worthless stimulus packages, handouts, bailouts and entitlements. All good until you run out of other people's money.The only thing Obamanation has stimulated is public outrage and that will see he and the taxpayer funded globe-trotting missus on an extended holiday in the not too distant future!
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