Posted on 10/05/2010 1:29:50 PM PDT by Willie Green
In Delaware, 50 union workers, including 20 Electrical Workers (IBEW) members are at work and paying their bills and mortgages thanks to economic recovery money that is also saving Amtrak millions of dollars in new equipment.
Those jobs are part of the as many as 3.3 million jobs that President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act saved or created since it was signed into law in February 2009. In the three months prior to passage of the legislation, the nation had lost 2.2 million jobs–more than 8 million jobs disappeared during the Bush administration.
The Delaware workers are converting old and abandoned dining cars into money making Amtrak passenger cars. IBEW member Tom Rapposelli, standing in one of the cars being refurbished, says in this IBEW video
"This car would have probably been totaled and left outside to rot. And with that stimulus money we were able to put it back together with new people being hired."
For Amtrak, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funded project has dramatically cut costs for new cars. Fixing up one of the old cars cost just a third of buying a new one.
Bill Bohne, IBEW’s railroad director says Amtrak project
"Is a great example of how the stimulus money is putting Americans back to work. It’s saving tax dollars in the long run and creating new jobs right now."
Is this a joke?
Great, I feel so stimulated. They rebuilt a rail car none of us will ever use. I guess that is as good as destroying perfectly good cars to support new car sales. Funny how normal individuals never do such things, only governments.
Bull!!!
Is this the news from Mars? These people are high. No wonder they are pushing for legalizing pot in CA.
Willie is just as high on his train fantasy. Notice this train on the public dime issue is the bulk of his posts.
Wow Willie, I knew you were big on the trains posts, but now you’re posting AFL-CIO propaganda too?
Did somebody hack your FReeper account? What has happened to the Pat Buchanan supporter that we all knew and, well that we knew anyway, during the 2000 election season?
fixed it
Newsflash: Buchanan wasn’t a labor basher.
Posting this AFL-CIO crap explains your tax and spend philosophy.
Well said.
They have the same deal here in Indianapolis.
Baraq even visited the his union buddies at the rail car rebuilding shop.
re: Bull!!!
There was a time when a writer would not simply parrot the spin of an administration and pass it off as fact in his or her article. Numbers and claims were independently arrived at and then fact checked by someone at the publication. Obviously those days are history. All they do these days is copy the press release, change a few words or phrases and it’s off to the presses!
They are just starting to grasp that this total abandonment of objectivity and open support a political view are going to cost them dearly. It worked for a couple of decades or so and they were so buoyed by their perception that they were getting away with it that it’s grown ever so steadily. They never gave any thought to what would happen when it got so blatant that it could no longer be ignored!
They deserve any bad thing that comes their way!
AFL-CIO?! Take this union propaganda and sell it up the road!
Buchanan was/is mainly an isolationist and a protectionist with regard to international trade. I don’t think that necessarily translates into a stooge for union government jobs.
They could have saved twice as much by using NON-UNION labor, instead of funneling this payback money to Unions.....and having the Unions funnel the money right back in political contributions to The Party.
Oh goody. My tax dollars paying a bunch of union goons to rebuild a rail car for that bottomless pit of taxpayer money, Amtrak. Talk about the blind leading the stupid and good obey after bad......
If it’s such a good idea to rebuild rail cars instead of buying new ones, what were they doing before this initiative?
Did they just buy new ones whenever the ashtrays got full?
How many millions of dollars in stimulus money did it take to fund these 50 union jobs. Could have probably saved millions of dollars by just giving each of these 50 union workers three or four hundred thousand dollars to do nothing except go around campaigning for their favorite democrat.
I know that you are very big on promoting rail travel. However this article is a promotion of wealth redistribution that happens to involve the railroad.
This is the wrong article to get your point across on this forum.
Willie. Are you a closet Lib or have the Diesel fumes taken you over? I like trains too, but Amtrack is a money losing pit that is only riden by the coctail cuircut between NYC and DC. Biden is there number one rider and cheeleader.
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