Gee, ya think??
An "infrastructure bank" is a way to shift control over spending away from Congress and state legislatures and onto Obama.
Congress would give Obama a blank check for billions in "infrastructure spending" and Obama gets to pick and choose where and how it is spent.
They get to bypass local bond initiative approval requirements, as local voters often vote "no" when asked if government should take on additional bonded debt to fund a particular infrastructure project.
How these work typically is that any private investors that participate are given government guarantees or preferences and above-market returns so that it is a no-lose investment. Thus, it would be a way for the Obama regime to reward and purchase support from wealthy supporters who participate in the "infrastructure bank".
Also, the Obama regime can direct spending to favored unions, allowing money to ultimately be recycled back to the Democrats in the form of political spending by the unions.
An "infrastructure bank" would be nothing more or less than a political piggy bank for the Democrats.
If Obama believes there are specific infrastructure projects that are absolutely necessary and worth running up our national debt to pay for, he needs to make the case to Congress for each particular project on the merits.
Too little too late, Zero. You're done.
A pork bank run by the White House.
What could go wrong?
as was said elsewhere, it sounds like “obamacare for jobs.”
Incredible. That’s the jobs plan, I guess. This is essentially a vast takeover by the federal government of everything in our economy and our lives.
Sgrew him, sgrew him, sgrew him.
Fascist jackass.
Got to get that crony capitalism throttled up before President Palin takes over, I see.
“The bank would augment government spending on “Big Dig”-type projects with loans and financing from the private sector.”
What a great model. The Big Dig’s final bill came in at 350% of what was originally estimated. http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1219/p02s01-ussc.html
There were billions in cost overruns due to mistakes, but well-connected contractors largely managed to avoid responsibility for these. http://www.boston.com/news/specials/bechtel/
“Political piggy bank” is just about the most succinct way to describe this boondoggle, both in terms of intent and actual practice.
I thought these were some of the reasons we have government(family) shows you how much Obama knows about government and now you need a bank to double down
Now I know what this moron meant by “shovel ready job”. He meant the next president is going to need one to clean-up the mess he is making of this country.
Any republican who supports this is finished.
This sounds like the high-speed train boondoggle may be rearing its ugly head again.
Full employment for unions, which is Obamaspeak for “working class families.” Of course, there’s also social justice for “non-working class families”, but that’s for another discussion.
Great another house bank, more democrat bounced checks.
If the Progressives/Democrats are operating it, it will be run with corruption, fraud, waste, favoritism, etc. Refer to FDR and his infamous public works projects. Ghost employees, boondoggle, payoffs for jobs, union thugery, etc.
He has already scammed and stolen several trillion dollars from the treasury, GM stockholders, Fanny and Freddie and various financial institutions and channeled the loot to his supporters and favorite victim groups.
Obama is nothing but another ghetto thief living in public housing.
In other words, a slush fund to pay off the unions
I’m so glad I can pay for it
/sarc