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GOP senators praise Boxer on roads bill
San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 11/9/11 | Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau

Posted on 11/09/2011 7:54:30 PM PST by SmithL

California Sen. Barbara Boxer won rare praise from Republicans Wednesday for unanimously passing an overhaul of federal highway programs bill out of her committee.

Boxer, a liberal Democrat who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, worked hand-in-hand with conservative Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe to consolidate 90 federal highway programs into 30, grant states more flexibility in spending highway money and expand a pilot program to leverage taxpayer money with private investment.

The two-year, $84 billion bill has no earmarks for pet projects and aims to offset all new spending with trims in other areas of the government. The 18-0 vote was a rare moment in the bitterly partisan climate on Capitol Hill and provides a template for infrastructure investment that has been sought by the Obama administration but rebuffed by Republicans.

(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; Government; Political Humor/Cartoons; US: California
KEYWORDS: boxer; yourtaxdollarsatwork

1 posted on 11/09/2011 7:54:31 PM PST by SmithL
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To: SmithL
The two-year, $84 billion bill has no earmarks for pet projects

liar, liar pants on fire!

2 posted on 11/09/2011 7:56:30 PM PST by patlin ("Knowledge is a powerful source that is 2nd to none but God" ConstitutionallySpeaking 2011)
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To: SmithL

So in other words....$84 Billion for union workers.

A Fork Lift Operator gets $56 an hour for working on a highway job in the Los Angeles Area

That’s @ Prevailing Wage......!

That could have provided 2 jobs @ $28 hr

or 4 jobs in the private sector (Where they stole the money from in the first place) @ $14 and hr

Way to go GOP - Nice compromise (sic)


3 posted on 11/09/2011 8:04:25 PM PST by jcon40
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To: SmithL

So what’s Senator Bab’s kickback? She never does anything for nothing. We will see who gets screwed in this one, but my money is on John Q. Public getting the shaft.


4 posted on 11/09/2011 8:07:23 PM PST by Steamburg (The contents of your wallet is the only language Politicians understand.)
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To: Steamburg

It’s right in the article segment... ‘Provides for leveraging the public dollar with private investment.’ IE: We give loan guarantees and money to private companies which then will massively stick it where the sun don’t shine to the private citizen who paid the money in the first place... IE: LOOK, Mommy, more toll roads!


5 posted on 11/09/2011 8:21:37 PM PST by kingu (Everything starts with slashing the size and scope of the federal government.)
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; bigheadfred; Bockscar; ColdOne; Convert from ECUSA; ...

Thanks SmithL.
...for unanimously passing an overhaul of federal highway programs bill out of her committee. Boxer... worked hand-in-hand with conservative Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe to consolidate 90 federal highway programs into 30, grant states more flexibility in spending highway money and expand a pilot program to leverage taxpayer money with private investment. The two-year, $84 billion bill has no earmarks for pet projects and aims to offset all new spending with trims in other areas of the government. The 18-0 vote...

6 posted on 11/09/2011 8:25:44 PM PST by SunkenCiv (It's never a bad time to FReep this link -- https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: SmithL
GOP praise Boxer on road....

Good doggie--woof....

7 posted on 11/09/2011 8:33:57 PM PST by tflabo (Restore the Republic)
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To: jcon40

Ain’t Bacon davis wonderful.


8 posted on 11/09/2011 8:46:02 PM PST by Lurkina.n.Learnin (The democratic party is the greatest cargo cult in history.)
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To: SmithL

People better wake up, what they are calling a “roads bill” is really two different bills that have been sitting in committee in the Senate. The first is Patty Murray’s S.942 - written to fund multi-modal transportation corridors, known as Gateways, around the country, particularly the Gateway coal terminal in WA state that is to be operated by SSA/ILWU, the company that employs Murrays husband, but we’ll get back to that later.

The co-sponsors of the bill are Susan Collins of Maine and Dick Durbin, who both have Gateway projects in their own states. The Gateway project in Maine is Gateway 1, it was stopped last year by the newly elected Republican governor. The one in Illinois is up and running, but needs improvements.

Gateways are the transportation corridors for the UN Agenda 21 Wildlands project, you know the Agenda 21 effort to make much of the country roadless? Do a search on CAGTC (coalition for America’s Gateways and trade corridors)/ Patty Murray.

The other bill is the bill to create a kind of transportation slush fund. I think that it was introduced by Rockefeller and Lautenberg.

Neither one of these bills do what they claim, improve transportation and create jobs. Read Murray’s bill. It’s only 4 pages long. It is all about paying for the environmental studies, the mitigation, permits, feasibility studies and even the financing, but it does nothing to create jobs in the short term. The bill just funnels more tax dollars to the same Democrat cronies as the first two stimulus bills.

In WA state it is even more egregious because Patty Murray’s husband works for SSA the company that will operate the Gateway terminal, the owner of the terminal is CARRIX, the largest cargo moving company in the world, and Goldman Sachs is the majority stakeholder in CARRIX. The freight (coal) will be moved by Warren Buffet’s rail road and the coal company is Peabody, all crony capitalist partners of the Obama administration.


9 posted on 11/09/2011 9:13:53 PM PST by Eva
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To: SmithL

The reason that the bill has no earmarks is because it is nothing but earmarks, 30 grants to states to spend on the pet projects.


10 posted on 11/09/2011 9:16:23 PM PST by Eva
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To: SmithL

Bookmark


11 posted on 11/09/2011 9:16:29 PM PST by Mariner (War Criminal #18)
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To: kingu

“It’s right in the article segment... ‘Provides for leveraging the public dollar with private investment.’ IE: We give loan guarantees and money to private companies which then will massively stick it where the sun don’t shine to the private citizen who paid the money in the first place... IE: LOOK, Mommy, more toll roads!”

You’re SO RIGHT. Here comes more Solyantras!!! Also, I think that Boxer finally figured out that if you let private companies start operating highways, they’ll price the roads so high that people will simply stop driving (they can price high because they monopoly protections in return for their ‘investment’). People around the world have learned this VERY NASTY lesson the hard way.

...but I can’t say I’m surprised that the Republicans caved into that crap.


12 posted on 11/09/2011 9:41:26 PM PST by BobL (Send Rove a Message, VOTE CAIN, no matter what)
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To: SmithL
The two-year, $84 billion bill has no earmarks for pet projects, although any such quid pro quo pork is expected to be attached to future bills, and aims (with no expectation of success) to offset all new spending with trims in other areas of the government that will likely be reversed in other pending legislation.
13 posted on 11/10/2011 1:02:44 AM PST by HKMk23 (YHVH NEVER PLAYS DEFENSE)
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To: SmithL
Boxer, a liberal Democrat who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, worked hand-in-hand with conservative Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe to consolidate 90 federal highway programs into 30, grant states more flexibility in spending highway money and expand a pilot program to leverage taxpayer money with private investment.

Sounds more like a victory for Jim Inhofe.

14 posted on 11/10/2011 2:27:44 AM PST by Recovering_Democrat
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To: SmithL

One of Boxer’s staff members did all the heavy lifting on anything she gets credit for.

Boxer is dumber than a box of rocks. She cannot merge anything -— I don’t think she can even use Bisquick—which is idiot proof.


15 posted on 11/10/2011 10:08:57 AM PST by ridesthemiles
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