Posted on 02/02/2022 12:38:58 PM PST by karpov
Congress passed a much-ballyhooed "infrastructure" bill. "Roads and bridges." Well, not much of it went to roads and bridges in the first place, only $110 billion out of $1.2 Trillion went to roads, bridges "and investments in other major transportation programs."
But the The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) decides where to spend the money. The The Wall Street Journal reports
"...Deputy Administrator Stephanie Pollack advised staff on the types of projects they should give the red light.
According to the memo, proposals should be sent to the bottom of the pile if they “add new general purpose travel lanes serving single occupancy vehicles.” She means cars. That includes construction of new roads and highways, or expansions of existing ones."
In short, how many roads and bridges do you get in the $1.2 trillion dollar bill? Zero.
The infrastructure bill also included provisions to limit the endless environmental review that is used to block projects. The FHWA undercut that neatly,
"The policy imposes a 90-day limit on approval for projects reviewed under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
But the FHWA is doubling down on other green restrictions. Its memo declares that any project requiring a new right of way is ineligible for a fast-tracked NEPA review. States planning to widen clogged highways using federal funds could face months or years of scrutiny."
The WSJ continues on how this memo undermines the clear intent of Congress, an interesting political story.
(Excerpt) Read more at johnhcochrane.blogspot.com ...
This reminds me of the “Shovel-ready Jobs” bill and the economic stimuli. Much, maybe most, of that spending went to bail out city and state governments that had deficits, rather than to the causes they were intended for.
First sentence is completely wrong. $110 out of the $550 in NEW spending was new spending on roads and bridges.
But if you’re talking total road spending in the full $1.2 trillion bill, then you have to add back the $650 billion in CONTINUING spending. So $760 billion of the 1.2 trillion infrastructure bill is “roads and bridges.”
You should have your blogging license taken away for rank incompetence.
Yet another scheme to do away with OUR cars.
DemocRAT infrastructure consists of the media, crooks, child molesters, illegal aliens, Hollywood, China, and numerous not nameable collections of excrement, vermin, and disease.
for this group of criminals in DC, funding American infrastructure will only fill their own pockets by their looting of the untraceable monies. That’s exactly how so many in DC become millionaires while in federal office.
They did the “roads and bridges” act under Clinton too. “Infrastructure” is one of the dirtiest words around. It means graft and power for our criminal elite and is cheered with media pompoms. The craven press even told us the “infrastructure” bill raised Biden’s popularity in the polls.
to bail out city and state governments that had deficits,
Absolutely. The one that gets me, among others is this:”Another $7.5 billion will go to building a nationwide network of plug-in electric vehicle chargers, according to the text.”
Nobody subsidizes gas stations...if anything they try to restrict them. Pay for your own damn chargers.
Good think Maliotakis and the rest of the Republicans voted for this disaster. I’m sure lots of projects will get done in their districts.
I hope that someone from Staten Island steps up and challenges her. She redefines the word, Moron.
Careful now, lots of EV-Cultists on FR are going to get mad at you for not talking about their charging stations and how the taxpayer should fund them.
You know, because all the EV owners are special and they’re saving the world and they deserve special treatment because they’re so special and environmentally conscious and special and hipster-chic because they have electric cars.
The pockets of politicians is infrastructure.
It reminds me of that too.
And the worst thing about the Obama “Shovel-ready Jobs” bill wasn’t that it failed to fund infrastructure as promised. The worst thing is that it became part of the annual budget instead of a “one-time” expenditure as promised.
Democrats wouldn’t give Trump an infrastructure bill. Trump would have built infrastructure with it. It would have been glorious!!!
It’s ALWAYS under the guise of “infrastructure”..
What it means is: Money for us to launder; money to give our Union boss pals, so they can give a huge chunk right back to our campaign..
Like the masks and “vaccines” have nothing to do with health and wellness, “Infrastructure” bills have NOTHING to do with infrastructure, roads, bridges, jobs, etc..
It’s money laundering. …and it’s OUR money, btw..
"Growing our entrenched bureaucracy to better control your lives."
It's like the millions of solar panels stuck on telephone poles under Obama's regime. Don't find many of those around anymore.
I don't agree that the memo undermines the clear intent of Congress.
A true infrastructure bill would have had widespread support from Congress, but this monstrosity got nary a vote from a Republican; it was passed with only Democrat support, and they got exactly what they wanted - big payoffs for their supporters and a little bit of infrastructure thrown in to make it look better.
Washington-speak has numerous sound bites that have stood the test of time, and retained the advantage of referring to absolutely nothing. Consider these hall of famers: “working families.” “dinner table issues.” “for the children;” “Comprehensive tax reform.” “Comprehensive (anything) reform.” “Waste abuse and corruption”. The gritty “reproductive health.” Now add in “crumbling infrastructure” which has persisted for several election cycles.
No one should ever even think about the conjured up title of any congressional bill, since they all are nothing but a license to steal.
The nazi’s could spend in all on Pennsylvania bridges and it would not be enough to fix the problems.
Just don’t give it to the state to run. They expanded the lanes in the turnpike, in the middle of the state. The road is great. The problem the congestion is around Philly and Pittsburgh where they are perpetually working but not accomplishing anything.
Route 80 is a complete mess, forcing truckers to pay the tolls on the TP. One big scam.....a stealth tax on consumers. Our gas taxes are higher than any neighboring state and our roads are the worst.
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