[CharlesWayneCT]

I don’t like public stadiums. I also don’t like public financing of private stadiums, although it’s better than public stadiums. Then there is tax breaks to someone to bring a team to a state — that’s like giving tax breaks to any company, so they have to be weighed on a case by case basis.

When I speak of “good infrastructure” spending, I am talking about items which need to be either built or repaired anyway, that we’d normally wait until we had the money for, but which if we spend the money now, we won’t have to spend it later.

So for example, if there is a bridge that has to be replaced in the next 5 years, starting the work now rather than waiting 3 years could stimulate the economy, and we’ll get the money back when we DON’T have to do the work 3 years from now. The hope being that 3 years from now we’ll be in a recovery and won’t need the government work.

Adding lanes to overcrowded roads, or building new miles of highway where needed, are both valid federal tasks, and contribute both to extra labor, and to economic growth because people who spend less time on the roads spend more time being productive.

Fixing existing government buildings that are falling apart, or building a new facility in a better location could also be “good” — like moving an agency from an expensive lease in Arlington to an owned building out in a cheap county in Maryland or Virginia — not only do we get a boost from building, we save money on the lease, and then we get cars off of crowded highways.

The infrastructure projects have to be “smartly” chosen. I don’t trust Obama to do this — he’ll build things with forced union labor in places to pay his political donors. Unfortunately, the “no earmarks” push will make it hard for the republicans to properly target infrastructure spending, since that is what “earmarks” are — spending targetted to the specific projects the legislature believes are important.

This is why INhofe was opposed to the earmark legislation. He knew SOMEONE was going to choose what projects were built, and felt it was better for the congress to do that than let Obama do it.

[Reily]

In principle I agree.

However I have rarely seen “smartly chosen” in action.
Usually its chosen based on which constituents waves the most campaign funds or helps legislator out in other less obvious but "financially rewarding" ways. And I have seen this done by both parties though the Rats are by far the worse and utterly hypocritical about it! My favorite two recent examples are Chelsea Clinton and Rahm Emanuel. Chelsea went from receiving a liberal arts degree from Brown to a 6 figure Wall Street job. The ink was barely dry on her diploma. Then there is Rahm who went from Congress to Wall Street and was reported to have made a cool $24 million there. Now tell me what investment acumen did either of them pick up either as a Brown liberal arts major or as a Rat "Wall Street-Hating (at least publicly!)" congressman? I am sure I can find GOP examples, but I find those two be particularly egregious because of the shear Rat hypocrisy!

Also I am not necessarily opposed to earmarks, earmarks are a micro-drop in the federal spending bucket compared to entitlements. Ranting about earmarks is the same as ranting about federal salaries; makes everyone feel good but doesn't address the spending problem. The problem is "entitlements" and Ryan is the only one who has attempted to address that, but I digress. My original comment was based on my disgust of personally witnessing the "gimmie gimmie" attitudes of some so-called local GOP supporters. It bothered me so much I never returned to local meetings. And I am sure the "Gimmie crowd" has elbowed and out-shouted their way to first in line to Cantor's ear. Hence his statements.