Free Republic

Less than two weeks after Hurricane Harvey made landfall, the House passed an $8 billion bill to help the Houston region recover. So Republicans in Congress can get things done quickly, just not when it comes to enacting a conservative agenda. At a retreat for Republican lawmakers back in January, Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan laid out an ambitious agenda they planned to achieve in their first 200 days — before the Senate would go on its monthlong break in August. They would: Repeal and replace ObamaCare, pass a sweeping tax reform, fund the border...

“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...

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 Washington decides to focus on infrastructure there will be a key constituency supportive of the effort – the American people. ... The support for infrastructure spending to boost the economy includes 86 percent of urban Americans and 89 percent of rural Americans. There is also agreement in both urban and rural communities that infrastructure investments will increase jobs and improve quality of life.

In their passion to achieve a government-crafted utopia, the liberal/progressive movement often does more harm than good. This is because their tool of choice – the government – can only apply superficial solutions that come with harmful side effects. Efforts to correct “income inequality” and “fight poverty” through government entitlement programs are a prime example. As columnist George Will recently asked and answered, “[W]hat if large causes of poverty are not matters of material distribution but are behavioral – bad choices and the cultures that produce them? If so, policymakers must rethink their confidence in social salvation through economic abundance.”...

New NEH grants include $30,000 for the 'oral histories' of LGBTQ community in Idaho! The National Endowment for the Humanities' list of taxpayer-funded projects includes $300,000 for conversations about water, $75,000 for a database of podcasts, and $30,000 for oral histories of lesbian and gay Idahoans. The NEH released its list of its first projects under the Trump administration this week. Jon Peede, the acting chairman of the NEH and Trump appointee, has discretion for signing off on every grant award. The $39.3 million list of projects comes after the president sought the elimination of the agency, as well as...

GOP leaders plan to whip lawmakers on whether they'd back a conservative, $1 trillion government funding bill. House GOP leaders will decide next week whether to brave an ugly floor fight over a massive GOP spending bill — a proposal applauded by some rank-and-file Republicans but that risks embarrassment if it fails. In a closed-door GOP conference meeting Friday morning, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said all 12 appropriations bills will be finished in committee by the end of next week. Starting Monday, leadership will begin a tentative whip count on whether lawmakers would vote for a package before the...

The amount of money the government spends on programs and the amount it collects in taxes could change from the budget office projections, so the office warns that the Treasury could run out of funds even earlier. Currently, the federal deficit stands at $693 billion, which is an increase of $134 billion than what it projected in January. The federal government has an outstanding debt of $19.8 trillion, which includes $14.3 trillion in public debt and $5.5 trillion held by government accounts. Spending on major government programs such as Social Security and Medicare causes the amount of borrowing to increase....

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...

Throughout the 2016 campaign and into the early stages of his presidency, Donald Trump vowed to make infrastructure improvements around the country. The promise was all part of his brand of populism — spend more money domestically and less abroad. America first. “We need members of both parties to join hands and work with us to pass a $1 trillion infrastructure plan to build new roads and bridges and airports and tunnels and highways and railways all across our great nation,” Trump pledged at a campaign rally in Melbourne, Florida, earlier this year. Given Trump’s Russia investigation toxicity, it will...

OFFICE OF THE COMPTROLLER FORECASTS SEVERE FINANCIAL STRAIN BEGINNING IN JULY As Illinois' Chief Fiscal and Accountability Officer, my Office is responsible for managing the state's financial accounts as well as providing the public and the state's elected leadership with objective and timely data concerning the state’s difficult fiscal condition. As you are quite aware, I have been very vocal regarding these issues and the budgetary impasse since assuming office six months ago; however we are now reaching a new phase of crisis. Accordingly, I must communicate to you at this time the full extent of our dire fiscal straits...

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.

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...

How much a Constitutional Budget would cost? During this entire budgeting and continuing resolution process, there are two words that will never be put together. They are “constitutional,” and “budget.” Why? Because no one in Washington wants to be restrained by the Constitution when it comes to getting money, spending money, and especially spending money they don’t have. Which is why we are some $20 trillion in for the National Debt. But it never had to be this way. It’s one thing to talk about the Constitution. It’s quite another to actually live by it. The Supreme Court doesn’t. They...

President Donald Trump on Friday signed a $1.2 trillion spending bill approved by Congress, averting a government shutdown that would have begun at midnight. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders, speaking to reporters at a regular media briefing, confirmed the president had signed the bill.

Congratulations! The GOP holds the House, the Senate, and the White House, and, in addition to not abiding by the Constitution and repealing all of the so-called “Affordable Care Act,” they are set to pass a budget that not only hands the Dems pretty much everything they want, it also funds so many obviously crazy things that it would be virtually impossible to defend. Take a deep breath, and let’s dive into the swamp! The GOP budget does not cut taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood, which comprises 40% of that organization’s income. Rather than mention that there’s nothing in the Constitution that...

A government-wide spending bill that President Donald Trump seemed to criticize Tuesday morning but now calls "a clear win for the American people" is headed for a House vote. The House is scheduled to vote on the bipartisan $1.1 trillion measure Wednesday afternoon. It is a product of weeks of Capitol Hill negotiations in which top Democrats like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi successfully blocked Trump's most controversial proposals, including a down payment on the oft-promised Trump Mexico border wall, cuts to popular domestic programs, and new punishments for so-called sanctuary cities.