1 Boring Old Man

Obama proposes $50 billion plan to fix roads, railways, runways
Bloomberg News in the Washington Post
By Julianna Goldman and Lisa Lerer
September 6, 2010

At a Labor Day rally in Milwaukee two months before midterm congressional elections, Obama called for a six-year program to fix roads, railways and runways, and to modernize the air- traffic control system. The funds would be included in a transportation authorization bill that’s stalled in Congress. Obama called for an "infrastructure bank" and requested money to rebuild 150,000 miles (241,400 kilometers) of roads, construct and maintain 4,000 miles of rail, and overhaul 150 miles of runways. Elections on Nov. 2 deciding every U.S. House seat and about a third of the Senate are focused on unemployment near 10 percent and a budget deficit swelled by the government’s financial-system bailout. "All of this will not only create jobs now, but will make our economy run better over the long haul," Obama said. "It’s a plan that history tells us can and should attract bipartisan support."

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky, said today in a statement that the "latest plan for another stimulus should be met with justifiable skepticism," and "Americans are rightly skeptical about Washington Democrats asking for more money." The Obama administration will work with Congress to ensure the plan is fully funded, and a "significant portion of the new investments would be front-loaded in the first year," the White House said in a statement. In his speech, Obama said his proposed public-works spending "will not add to the deficit over time."

The program will focus on long-term modernization of transportation systems and create jobs starting in 2011, an administration official said today. The White House will propose to pay for the new spending by eliminating tax deductions for oil and gas companies, the official said…

Obama Pushes Jobs Plan, and Assails G.O.P. for Criticism
New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
September 6, 2010

MILWAUKEE — President Obama, looking for ways to jump-start the sagging economy and create new jobs, called on Congress on Monday to approve a far-reaching plan to rebuild and modernize the nation’s transportation networks — roads, rail and airport runways — over the next six years. With Democrats facing increasingly bleak re-election prospects, Mr. Obama used a Labor Day visit to a union festival here to lay out the plan, which the White House says could begin creating jobs as early as 2011 if Congress moves quickly. But prospects for a hasty passage seem unlikely, given that lawmakers have only a few weeks before they go home to campaign and Republicans have little interest in giving Democrats any pre-election legislative victories.

“Over the next six years,” Mr. Obama promised “we are going to rebuild 150,000 miles of our roads — that’s enough to circle the world six times; that’s a lot of road. We’re going to lay and maintain 4,000 miles of our railways — enough to stretch coast-to-coast. We’re going to restore 150 miles of runways and advance a next-generation air-traffic control system to reduce travel time and delays for American travelers — I think everybody can agree on that.” Mr. Obama vowed that the plan, which would include work on high-speed rail lines, would be “fully paid for” and not add to the deficit.

But Republicans, who have been campaigning on the theme that the president’s $787 stimulus package was wasteful and did not work, immediately cast aspersions on the plan, describing it as another “tax and spend” initiative from Democrats. Representative Eric Cantor, the House Republican whip, called it “yet another government stimulus effort, another play called from the same failed Keynesian playbook.”

Mr. Obama also used Monday’s appearance here to deliver a hearty defense of his policies and take a few whacks at Republicans. “They talk about me like a dog,” the president said. “That’s not in my prepared remarks, but it’s true.” And Mr. Obama repeatedly referred to the House Republican leader, Representative John Boehner, as “the man who wants to be speaker”…

The idea for an infrastructure initiative, and in particular an infrastructure bank to leverage public money for private investment, is one that the White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, has been promoting for some time within the West Wing. It was not included in the original $787 billion stimulus program in early 2009 because the administration and Congressional Democratic leaders wanted to pass that package as quickly as possible, given how rapidly the economy was sinking in the weeks before Mr. Obama took office. Changes in the way public projects are determined and financed would have met resistance in the large committees of Congress that have jurisdiction…