Posted on 01/28/2008 12:41:28 AM PST by Berlin_Freeper
If we're going to spend $150 billion, I'd like to suggest that maybe we add two lanes of highway from Bangor all the way to Miami on I-95. A third of the United States population lives within 100 miles of that.
This nation's infrastructure is falling apart. And if we built those lanes of highways -- with American labor, American steel, American concrete - I believe it would do more to stimulate the economy.
And the reason I say that is because when we were going through a recession in my state, we were in the middle of a billion-dollar highway construction program that brought about 40,000 jobs and brought a billion dollars of capital into the economy.
That's a long-term stimulus package that I think would have more impact on the American long-term future. And it would keep social capital from being wasted, fuel wasted. A lot of people in Florida sit around in traffic every day, never getting to their kids' dance recitals or soccer games because they're stuck in traffic, and we've done nothing about it.
(Excerpt) Read more at mikehuckabee.com ...
Already been discredited:
Highway to heaven (Huckabee’s nutty infrastructure plan)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1960216/posts
cut taxes...cut spending...reduce regulation
and don’t let unions take control of construction projects
Ah yes, using tax money to create jobs. Didn’t Milton Friedman already debunk this myth?
Yes...but read the short article at the link...wouldn’t be able to start construction for over TWENTY YEARS if it was approved TODAY!
Huckabee a leader?
He couldn’t lead a horse to water.
“a large number of small-scale projects like playground reconstruction in low-income communities”
You have seriously got to be kidding me. How much infrastructure do you think a kiddies playground has? lol.
When I was an ironworking one of the guys had a community plan to build a playground so he a a team of us to donate our services in building it. Then when it was done at lunch we had a pizza party. Be serious.
Huckabee is over.
McCain: What’s a job?
Huck: Something I try to create by taxing people in order to bring hope for illegals.
Why lead a horse to water when you can build plumbing and save yourself the time leading a horse to water...?
Thanks
I didnt know that he said this
I heard it in a twisted fashion from the MittNittWitts
The idea has merit...
nothing will actually be built but after throwing billions of dollars we can say “we tried”
Huckabee is a fine man. A good Christian, a good family man, a great Preacher and man of God.
But his constant promotion of Christianity (not that there’s anything wrong with that) simply scares the pants off of secular conservatives, Jewish Republicans, and non-faithful Americans in general.
Like it or not, they are also part of this great Judeo-Christian nation we call America.
Which adds up to the reality that a Huckabee nomination would max out at about 25-35% voter support ... tops.
As much as Americans love faithful Christians, they don’t want the White House transformed into a Theocratic Pulpit.
As a strict Baptist myself, I don’t either.
Huckabee’s big mistake is that he is running for President seemingly as a way to PROMOTE his Christianity, and the idea of improving America is an afterthought.
People like GWB or Mitt Romney run for President in order to improve America. Their faith is something they remain proud to express and participate -— yet they don’t use it as THE driving factor in their political life.
There is a big difference between the two approaches.
Mike Huckabee scares me NOT because of his strong Christian faith, but because he would open the conservative Christian wing of the GOP up to the most intense vial scrutiny and criticism.
A Huckabee nomination would hand the White House over to the liberal Democrats for the next eight years, and maybe longer.
Read it again, and this time, take the Huckabee chip off your shoulder, it’s hurting your reading comprehension.
She said that only small-scale projects like playground reconstruction would fly below the EIS ceiling. A superhighway would take decades to gain approval. So Mr. Huckabee’s “jobs plan” would likely happen during Chelsea Clinton’s administration, if not later...
Are you going to pull a highway out of your backside? The reality is the infrastructure *needs* the public investment, which happens to also create good paying jobs. The jobs part is the good news, not the bad news.
And we can do all of that by raising taxes to “raise hope” in true Huckabee fashion!!!
He isn’t even in office and he’s already talking about pet projects to throw money at.
Yes, just as Huckabee you know what “we” need.
Furthermore, government projects don’t create good jobs...if you don’t know why then I understand why you support Huckabee.
2 words
Big Dig
(which Reagan vetoed in 1987 but congress overrode)
You need to reread “the Huckabee plan for sane people that don’t believe building kiddie playgrounds will save the economy - plan.”
He talks about: we are spending this money already so let’s include this. He is not talking about decades. Interesting on how you are already psyched about a Chelsea Clinton administration though. Do you have any extra autographed photos I can use for my dartboard?
I made a similar proposal back in the Spring of 2001 suggesting a new federal capital district be built. The major aspects of my proposal were to have a federal district that was less apt to foreign attack, to move Congress to an area where members of Congress could more easily return home to their states and districts, to return the present federal district lands to the states thus ending the question of D.C. statehood, and to spur the US economy for decades. Such a plan would likewise have foreign nations spending their money in the US building new embassies. I still believe the proposal has many merits.
That aside, I believe the best possible economic stimulus plan the government could undertake would be to immediately reduce both the taxes and withholdings on incomes, coupled with a reduction in the size of government to pay for the plan. This would give Americans more money to spend, and keep America from having to borrow more money which only devalues the dollar further, and puts off for another day what has caused the present economic problems the nation faces.
The consensus on the thread is that the Hucksters plan is “nutty”. Yet, it seems they have no problem with the stimulus package we are going to get. You know a rebate to those who don’t even pay taxes? Put a few dollars in peoples hands so they can go to Wally-World and buy some ChiCom crap. I wonder if Milton Friedman has discredited that yet?
Romney doesn’t seem such a financial genius to me, but that’s me. It is well known that these stimulus packages are just complete subterfuge anyway. They are nothing more than symbolic overtures to the citizenry to make them “feel good” about the economy, after the media successfully talks it down. I just knew the economy was going to “get bad” about this time. How did I know that? It puts the economy on the top burner and keeps the light of day from shining on the Rats. It will diminish border and national security issues as well as social issues in the debates.
These stimulus packages are never realized until the downturn in the economy has already passed. I think I would pass on the I-95 project and reduce the capital gains rate to encourage investment. Make the Bush tax cuts permanent and give the middle class another slight cut. Reduce some of the wasteful spending and then you will have something that will stimulate the economy. I do not fault Huckabee, his plan at least gets at something real in the long term and doesn’t just throw more US dollars to the ChiComs.
You are the very definition of obtuse.
Metaphor there pal.
Means Huckabee blows.
Mitt surely knows that better than the rest of us, ya know with the Big Dig and all, lol.
yes it will cost even more money and take longer. My attitude is to do the research first. do we need this and do the benefits justify the cost?
Because we’re at a point where the federal govt already spends too much money on everything and taxes way too high
I wish I had known you were going to post that, it would have saved me some typing, lol.
Click on the link at my post #2...very short article.
I think I would pass on the I-95 project and reduce the capital gains rate to encourage investment. Make the Bush tax cuts permanent and give the middle class another slight cut. Reduce some of the wasteful spending and then you will have something that will stimulate the economy.
-
that’s what we wanted to hear from Huck. He could’ve said this rebate didn’t make sense...why give rebates to people who don’t pay taxes? Instead, he continues to live up to his reputation as a pro-life John Edwards
Franklin Delano Huckabee.
Aren’t the rest in line with the stimulus package? That’s the point, these stimulus packages always get online too late to turn the downturn (slight as it is) into an upturn. It doesn’t matter if it is 1 year or 20 years, it’s too late. I will qualify, I am not for this I-95 project, but will only use it as an example.
If the money goes towards infrastructure, the material, labor and management has to come from somewhere and the money will go to those who do the job. When all is said and done, you still have the money go into the economy and have that infrastructure as an asset. With the current stimulus package the money goes into the economy and you have nothing to show for it. Well, perhaps a greater trade deficit to the ChiComs, some happy drug dealers, and then the other 30-50% will actually strengthen the US economy in the long-term. The stimulus package will give some of the people who pay taxes a little of their money back, that’s a positive. But what it is actually is wealth re-distribution in a tax-cut wrapper.
Huck'd do better to stick with Slick's plan of mass marketing prisoner's blood.
I’ll tell you what it does but we have to whisper so the dems won’t know.
It’s not going to really stimulate the economy but since it’s a big tax cut, democrats and RINOS will not be able to afford new government spending ideas.
Why don’t we just employ 100,000 rock throwers at $100,000 a year to break windows around the country and allow people to get money for the replacements from the Window Replacement Administration (WRA)? The rock throwers will only cost $10 billion leaving $140 billion for the WRA to dole out.
The Promised Land
Over 5,000 years ago, Moses said to the children of Israel, “Pick up your shovels, mount your asses and camels, and I will lead you to the Promised Land.”
Nearly 5,000 years later, Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, “Lay down your shovels, sit on your asses, and light up a Camel; this is the Promised Land!”
Now Mike Huckabee wants to confiscate your shovels, kick your lazy asses, raise the price of your Camels, and mortgage the Promised Land.
Huckabee wants to change the Republican Party Emblem from an elephant to a Trojan, because it stands for inflation, protects a bunch of pr*cks, halts production, and gives a false sense of security while one is being shafted.
I still fall back on a comment I posted earlier that the best stimulus package government could undertake is reducing income taxes and withholdings, and reduce the size of government. This is not limited to the federal government either. Twenty-eight states are facing budget problems, with California leading the pack. Government at all levels can have a great role in an economic stimulus package by applying tax cutting, government reduction measures.
These economic downturns are becoming too frequent. That reminds me. President Bush signed the most massive highways construction act ever only a few years ago. How’s that working out for the country to keep economic downturns at bay? Not too well I’d say.
It figures Huckabee would advocate a massive government spending program as a cure for recession. Heaven forbid we actually let the people spend their own money. The government is just so much more efficient at it.
Hmm...Huckabee wants to build two extra lanes of hiway from Maine to Florida
Geee...Jorge Boosh is already building 3 football-fields wide I-35 to help illegals and drug dealers ship thru the US with more ease....with a lot of tax money being used. The NAFTA Superhiway
At least Huck told us what he wants to do....Boosh snuck NAFTA Superhiway by thru his Globalist America-hating buddies
The Huckster would talk a lot more about deporting his illegal buddies if he was serious about creating jobs.
McCain wants to give illegals amnesty, Giuliani wants to give them welfare and Huckabee wants to give them both.
Create jobs? How does anyone who has sucked off some government entity all their miserable lives create jobs?
I want someone who has done it in the real world, not in some ivory tower of the government.
None of these bozos have ever done anything that wasn’t connected with some sort of government excess.
Romney doesn’t NEED the job, he can do just fine on his own in the private sector. The rest would be groveling for chump change if it wasn’t for some type of government work or insider contacts with a state enterprise.
I have seen lots of convoluted, meandering definitions of “conservatism,” but when the rubber hits the road, who would be left standing with no worries in THE PRIVATE SECTOR based solely on their own merit???
Romney is the only one of them...
“Yet, it seems they have no problem with the stimulus package we are going to get.”
Did you read the stimulus plan threads? Freepers have a big problem with it, and rightly so.
Gee, Huckabee, while you’re spending billions, why don’t you just create a huge, new bureaucracy of political patronage like Roosevelt did during the depression? The WPA, for its time, was the biggest pork barrel spending project in history and was one of the major ways that the federal government grabbed power from the states and the people. We’re still feeling the negative effects of that.
From Economic History.net:
“Robert Margo argues that federal relief programs like the WPA may have exacerbated the nation’s unemployment problem. He presents evidence indicating that the long-term unemployed on work relief were “not very responsive to improved economic conditions” while the long-term unemployed not on work relief “were responsive to improved economic conditions” (Margo 1991:339). Many workers were afraid of the instability associated with a private-sector job and were reluctant to leave the WPA. As Margo explains, “By providing an alternative to the employment search (which many WPA workers perceived, correctly or not, to be fruitless), work relief may have lessened downward pressure on nominal wages” (p. 340). This lack of adjustment of the wage rate may have slowed the economy’s return to full employment.
Using this data source to investigate the relationship between WPA appropriations to the states and state economic conditions makes the administration’s claims of allocating dollars to where need was greatest difficult to support. Instead, evidence supports a political motivation to the pattern of expenditures. While the legislation that funded the WPA sailed through the House, a vocal minority in the Senate argued against the measure — a fact the Roosevelt administration did not forget. “Hopkins devoted considerable attention to his relations with Congress, particularly from 1935 on. While he continually ignored several Congressmen because of their obnoxious ways of opposing the New Deal . . . he gave special attention to Senators . . . who supported the work relief program (Charles 1963, p. 162).”
Classic, clever post. I laughed at how totally true it was.
LOL!
“People like GWB or Mitt Romney run for President in order to improve America. Their faith is something they remain proud to express and participate -— yet they don’t use it as THE driving factor in their political life.”
Don’t kid yourself, Romney will use the White House to become the poster boy for mormonisn. Having a mormon president will give an aura of authenticity to a psuedo-Christian cult; many uninformed souls will be mislead. IF you are trully afraid of a theocrasy, then fear Romney....mormons are the MOST likely of all to attemtpt this.....not a Southern Baptist. Before is life was ended, Joseph Smith was planning on running for POTUS. This has always been a mormon goal and dream.
You already see Huckabee is leading in OK, MO, WV, AR, AL, TN, and GA. NC and LA are in play. He would have to have money to take Texas. He would have won SC without Thompson. NOWHERE else is he getting any play, ESPECIALLY in the important states of NY, IL, and CA. Unless a miracle from heaven takes place, he doesn't have a snowball's chance in he// of being prez.
I am voting for Huckabee for President, but even I can see what is going on -- he is shoring up the social and religious conservatives for the ticket, possibly as a VP. Where else is someone like me to go? McCain or Giulliani? Get real. Romney who has flipped on guns and abortion? No way.
Huckabee's job is to keep voters like me in the game. The GOP cannot win if we stay home. And without him, we might.
THAT is why you hear him using Christian and religious inferences. His job is to talk to us to keep us up, and not let us get down and then out of the process.
He and his handlers are not stupid! If his voice was to the mainstream you wouldn't hear any Christian or religious inferences.
That is why it is so sad to see the Huckabee-haters on FR, wearing their blinders to the big picture. Huckabee is their ally now! He doesn't have a chance of winning the presidency, but he is working to keep the social conservatives voting for the Republican candidate in the fall.
A lot of FReepers have always been "tracks through the forest" libertarians.
Their imaginary world is the Utopia of minimalist-government absolutism.
I feel the same way about Romney.
I really like Mike Huckabee, his personality, his demeanor, and the fact he is a faithful proud Baptist, as am I.
But he would bring devastation on the GOP, like Limbaugh and most other conservative thinkers say, because word-twisting reporters, and even secular Republicans, would accuse Huck all summer of seeking to turn the White House into an arm of evangelicals.
Huck's recent comment about changing the Constitution to fit God's Word instead of the other way around only solidified those who fear a theocracy Administration.
If Huckabee were President, Catholics would be skeptical, as would all denominations.
Jewish Republicans and ESPECIALLY Jewish Democrats would be very scared, not because they fear Huckabee is a Jew hater... but out of fear he would violate the Establishment Clause which has keep the USA in harmony these past 250 years.
Just when the GOP has been making great strides in recruiting Jews and other ethnicities into the fold.
As for Freepers who hate Huckabee and Romney, it has really made me rethink my blind acceptance of the far right, even though I consider myself to be one.
Until last month, I always rejected liberal claims that the far right is intolerant .... and now I have to wonder if they didn't have a point .....
Wow, I would hate to hear your opinion on our Unitarian Presidents.
There is an old expression, “fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice, shame on me”. The US was fooled by Slick. I hope we have learned enough not to be taken in by the Huckster. I am a Christian(Baptist) and an Arkansan from the SW part of that state(the same part Hope is in). I don’t hate him, I pity him. Some people will sell their integrity for 30 pieces of silver. I am sure Tyson gave him a lot more to be their Judas Goat. The Bible tells us to judge a tree by its fruit. I see every day the kind of fruit he bears.
I drove thru Hope yesterday. It is changing into a third world slum. There is a lot of road construction going on. Most of the workers were Hispanic. Slave labor is cheap.
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