Filed under: News, Politics, President Obama
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.