Posted on 11/08/2012 9:13:21 AM PST by ExxonPatrolUs
Over the course of this campaign, commentators on both sides of the political divide seemed to agree on one point: this was a campaign about nothing. Barack Obama’s supporters wanted him to lay out a detailed and ambitious agenda for his second term. Mitt Romney’s fans wanted to hear more about the radical restructuring of government. But in fact, by the standards of most elections, this was a campaign about something very big.
In the long run, you cannot have robust growth without strong infrastructure. The U.S. has historically been world class in this regard. Only a decade ago we were ranked fifth in overall infrastructure by the World Economic Forum; today we have dropped to 25th. The American Society of Civil Engineers calculates that we have a $2 trillion backlog of repairs that must be done over the next five years to stay competitive.
(Excerpt) Read more at swampland.time.com ...
Just another argument that says paying for infrastructure repairs for overpriced, underworked, selfish Unions can ‘benefit’ our economy.
Frankly I’d rather let the roads and bridges crumble in the blue states. They deserve pot holes, crumbled concrete expressways, precarious bridges and all that comes with as far as I’m concerned.
Every time you hear some pundit drone on about how we have to “invest” in the nation’s “crumbling” infrastructure, remember what the money ultimately pays for:
1. Very high union wages
2. Expensive electronic traffic information billboards every couple of miles that, for the most part, flash “Don’t Drink and Drive”.
3. Sidewalks in rural areas.
4. A million useless road signs, like tenth of a mile markers.
We have plenty of infrastructure spending already to cover any “crumbling” road. We could cut it by 20% and still have enough. The rest is just a boondoggle.
If we borrow (or print) yet another Two Thousand Billion Dollars to revamp our civil infrastructure, the only people who will be able to afford to use them will be government employees.
Russ Roberts runs the most excellent economics blogsite Econtalk. He debated a Keynesian on this exact point:
Frank and Roberts on Infrastructure
Hosted by Russ Roberts
Robert Frank of Cornell University and EconTalk host Russ Roberts debate the merits of a large increase of infrastructure spending. In the summer of 2012, Frank and Roberts were interviewed by Alex Blumberg of NPR’s Planet Money. That interview was trimmed to ten minutes for a Planet Money podcast. This is the entire conversation. Frank argues that a trillion increase in infrastructure spending, where the projects are decided by a bipartisan commission, would put people back to work and repair a near-failing system at a time when it is cheap to repair it and cheap to fund those repairs. Roberts disagrees with virtually every piece of Frank’s argument. This lively conversation covers fundamental disagreements over fiscal policy, the proper role for government, and the political process.
..
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2012/09/frank_and_rober.html
Obama has no agenda he can share with the citizens. And he’s long ago decided that he doesn’t need Congressional support as long as he can appoint unconfirmed Czars and write unchallenged Executive Orders.
This is NOT America.
They’re still stuck in the 1930s when roads were built with shovels and fairly small bulldozers. Much of the construction is now automated and it uses realatively few people.
And may I ask “Where do you want the next 20 International Airports?”. They are all finished and many of them are underutilized.
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