Free Republic

“We have bridges that are falling down,” then-candidate Donald Trump told Fox last August, pledging to double the amount Hillary Clinton wanted to spend on infrastructure as president of the United States. “We’ll get a fund, we’ll make a phenomenal deal with the low interest rates and rebuild our infrastructure.” One year later and eight months into his presidency, Trump has continued to double down on his lofty promises — during “Infrastructure Week” in June, he told his supporters in Cincinnati that the U.S. “deserves the best infrastructure in the world.” But the administration has been slow to move its...

Americans spent more money on taxes than they did on food and clothing last year, according to data released earlier this week. In an assessment of “Consumer Expenditures” for 2016, the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed the average bill for federal, state and local taxes was $10,489. By comparison, Americans spent $9,006 on food and clothes, with most of that going toward food. CNSNews.com first pointed out the findings. While it may not come as a surprise that American households are shelling out to Uncle Sam, the data showed that bill has risen sharply in recent years -- the average...

A toll feasibility study is up in the air for the future Interstate 49 bridge over the Arkansas River with extensions connecting Arkansas 22 to Interstate 40 at Alma. Following approval last year of $10 million in I-49 project development, the Arkansas Department of Transportation solicited bids for a consultant to conduct an I-49 toll feasibility study. They are currently in a negotiation phase, according to ArDOT District 4 Construction Engineer Jason Hughey. ArDOT selected HNTB on June 23 to conduct the “I-49 Alternative Delivery Study.” The negotiations are over the scope of work and process has been “fluid,” ArDOT...

<p>WASHINGTON — The Secret Service can no longer pay hundreds of agents it needs to carry out an expanded protective mission – in large part due to the sheer size of President Trump's family and efforts necessary to secure their multiple residences up and down the East Coast.</p>

The state has officially taken over the Interstate 69 Section 5 project from I-69 Development Partners.The Indiana Finance Authority announced it had reached an agreement with the private developer in June to take over construction, operation and maintenance of the project after several delays in the completion schedule. To officially take control of the project, the Indiana State Budget Committee had to approve the plans. Additionally, all parties had to endorse a settlement agreement and bondholders had to be paid in full.The finance authority announced Monday it had completed the settlement transaction to terminate the contract with I-69 Development Partners...

When it comes to spending and infrastructure, one of South Carolina’s great white whales rose from the deep with news last week that the Army Corps of Engineers approved a permit to begin work on the South Carolina leg of I-73. Ultimately, the interstate highway could take motorists from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula straight down to Myrtle Beach.The permit covers the whole state length, slicing across its northeastern corner, starting near Bennettsville. Construction could begin within two years, supporters say, on a project first contemplated in 1982.The southern half alone, linking I-95 to the Conway Bypass, is estimated to cost more...

If the Senate bill to defund the Planned Parenthood abortion business does not get the 50 votes it needs to pass, here is one probation Republican you can thank. Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine is one of a couple of pro-abortion Republicans in the Senate who is strenuously opposed to defunding Planned Parenthood. Here’s what she said over the weekend: “It makes absolutely no sense to eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood,” Collins told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on “This Week.” “There are already longstanding restrictions on the use of federal funds for abortion, so this is not what this...

LONDON — The rest of the planet bears a warning for President Trump’s plan to lean heavily on private business in conjuring a trillion dollars’ worth of American infrastructure: Handing profit-making companies responsibility for public works can produce trouble. In India, politically connected firms have captured contracts on the strength of relationships with officialdom, yielding defective engineering at bloated prices. When Britain handed control to private companies to upgrade London’s subway system more than a decade ago, the result was substandard, budget-busting work, prompting the government to step back in. Canada has suffered a string of excessive costs on public...

It's possible Illinois is about to come down with a statewide case of Seasonal Affected Disorder. The season is construction, which an old joke says is one of two in Illinois. The disorder is the continuing one in Springfield, where the ongoing budget crisis is about to shut down road projects during the height of that season. And the affected are everyone from officials who work to put needed projects together, to the drivers who have to negotiate construction zones and torn up streets. In Aurora, workers last week got the barriers and cones out to reduce Farnsworth Avenue, near...

The Democratic National Committee raised nearly $4.3 million in May, making it the organization's worst May on record for fundraising since 2003, according to newly released Federal Election Commission data. In May 2003, the Democratic group pulled in $2.7 million. Although 2017 is an off-year for fundraising, the DNC has raised between $4.5 million and $20 million every May in the nearly decade and a half since then. The low number follows another rough fundraising month in April, in which the group hauled in $4.7 million, making it the worst April of fundraising since 2009.

on Ossoff, the 30-year-old Democrat candidate for Georgia's special election runoff this coming Tuesday, reported having nine times as many donors from California than from Georgia in the past two months. Between March 29 and May 31, Ossoff reported 7,218 donations from California and only 808 donations from Georgia, The Mercury News reported. This means he took 8.9 times as many gifts from the Golden State. In the nine counties of the San Francisco Bay Area alone, Ossoff reported receiving 3,063 donations in the same period, nearly four times his Georgia total. These are only the donations he is required...

Texas is a highway state. This reality stems from the need to meet the mobility demands of both sprawling metropolitan regions and vast rural areas.Paying for the state's massive system of highways has always been a challenge, however. Estimates from the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) put the state's highway expansion and maintenance needs alone at nearly $383 billion by 2040. Existing public funding, projected to be $70 billion over the next decade, will not be able to cover that cost without unprecedented funding increases after 2026.While Texans are clearly amenable to paying for better roads — two recent state...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- President Trump says he's creating a $1 trillion plan to rebuild America's roads, bridges and runways. "We will create the first class infrastructure our country and our people deserve," Trump said Wednesday in Cincinnati. "It's time to rebuild our country to bring back our jobs." Trump has dubbed this week as "infrastructure week." But an analysis of the Trump budget finds that it cuts infrastructure spending overall by $55 billion, according to the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton Budget Model, a non-partisan research organization. (Coincidentally, Trump graduated from the Wharton School in 1968). Over 10 years, Trump's...

Now that the long Memorial Day holiday is over and legislators and the governor have returned from their road trips, we hope they have a better sense of the condition of highways around the state and a renewed sense of urgency on the need for upgrades and repairs. The first order of business, it would seem to us, is to come to some agreement on a state transportation budget for the next two years. Hopefully, hopefully, when that is done they will also take a longer-term view of Wisconsin’s highway construction needs and how best they should be met —...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Repairing the nation's crumbling roads and bridges was supposed to be an area ripe for bipartisan compromise between congressional Democrats and President Donald Trump. Instead, Democrats are panning Trump's proposed $1 trillion overhaul and even Republicans are balking at some aspects of the emerging plan. The White House's self-proclaimed "Infrastructure Week" began with Trump appearing Monday with aviation officials and some prominent GOP lawmakers to announce plans to privatize the nation's air traffic control system and separate operations from the Federal Aviation Administration.

The rapidly escalating tollway fines that have left some Texans owing thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars could be a thing of the past, based on an amendment that surprisingly found its way into a Texas Department of Transportation bill this week. But the impact to your pocketbook would depend on which tollway you’re driving. Under the amendment, a car owner who has driven on a tollway without paying — even hundreds of times — would owe at most $73 in fines every six months, plus the unpaid tolls. But that change, proposed by Rep. Ina Minjarez, D-San...

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s grand plan to spend $1 trillion over the next 10 years on highways and other infrastructure improvements faces a formidable roadblock in Congress and state legislatures. There’s agreement the investment is badly needed to improve the nation’s sagging infrastructure but how to cover the huge expense is the point of tension. Trump would use $200 billion in public funds to generate $800 billion in private money under a partnership program that would finance government bonds and also return a profit to private companies through interstate tolls and other user fees. To do that, Congress would...

Solving traffic issues across our state is an age-old problem.Southern Nevada faces gridlock as the area continues to expand. Northern Nevada's geography makes road construction and rehab trickier.But the appetite for taxes, which help build our roads, is weak. One potential solution? Toll roads.Tom Skancke is a lobbyist and transportation expert who thinks toll roads could be a great way for Nevada to help improve its infrastructure."What I'm suggesting is that more states around the country and particularly in the West -- in the Intermountain West -- have a serious conversation about more toll lanes," he said.Skancke said one of...

Planned Parenthood’s newly released "2015-2016 Annual Report" says that the organization performed 328,348 abortions in the year that ended on Sept. 30, 2015, and received $554.6 million in "government health services reimbursements and grants"--money that came from U.S. taxpayers--in the year that on June 30, 2016. {..snip..}

The United Nations complained Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s budget cuts would make it “impossible” for the organization to continue its essential work: “The figures presented would simply make it impossible for the U.N. to continue all of its essential work advancing peace, development, human rights and humanitarian assistance,” Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said in a statement Wednesday, according to Reuters.