Posted on 12/04/2014 7:40:35 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
President Obama told corporate leaders Wednesday he was embarrassed by U.S. infrastructure that was "falling behind" countries like China who spent aggressively on construction projects.
"I’d much rather have our problems than China’s problems. That I’m confident about. On the other hand, the one thing I will say is if they need to build some stuff, they can build it," the president said during a Q-and-A with members of the Business Roundtable. "And over time, that wears away our advantage competitively. It’s embarrassing. You know, you drive down the roads and you look at what they’re able to do."
The president said that during his recent trip to China, world leaders worked out of a building that "probably put most of the conference centers here to shame."
"They had built it in a year," he continued. "Now, you got an authoritarian government, you know, that isn’t necessarily accountable. I understand we’re not going to do that. But if they’re able to build their ports, their airports, their smart grid, their air traffic control systems, their broadband systems with that rapidity and they’re highly superior to ours, over time that’s going to be a problem for us."
The president acknowledged that securing funding for infrastructure in the U.S. was politically difficult, and especially because many road and bridge projects were paid for with a gas tax lawmakers were loathe to increase.
"Votes on gas taxes are really tough," Obama said. "Gas prices are one of those things that really bug people."
But Obama said that he hoped that lawmakers could find an infrastructure revenue stream that was "not so politically frightening to members of Congress," and that the issue could be part of discussions in a broader tax reform package.
"It’s probably a good time for us to redesign and think through, what is a sustainable way for us on a regular basis to make the investments we need," the president said.
Obama said that "window" to work on tax reform would likely only exist if lawmakers were able to provide some "certainty" by passing a government funding measure in the lame-duck.
The president said that, although he is encouraged by early statements from Republican leaders, Washington also needed to break the "notion that if you disagree on one thing, then suddenly everybody takes their ball home and they don’t play."
"We have to be able to disagree on some things while going ahead and managing the people’s business and working on the things where we do agree," Obama said. "You know, democracy is messy, but it doesn’t have to be chaos."
Lawmakers appear to be circling around a legislative package that would largely fund the government through the remainder of the fiscal year, with the exception of the Department of Homeland Security, which would only receive funding until the spring.
Republican leaders say doing that would give them leverage to pressure the president to roll back his recently announced executive actions on immigration reform.
Obama said Wednesday he suspected "that temperatures need to cool a little bit in the wake of my executive action."
"Certainly there will be pressure initially within Republican caucuses to try to reverse what I’ve done, despite the fact that what I’m doing I think is exactly the right thing to do," Obama said.
But he thanked the gathering — which included dozens of corporate executives from some of the nation's biggest companies — for their support in his push for comprehensive immigration reform, saying he was grateful for their lobbying efforts.
The president said he was optimistic that congressional leaders would strike a deal, and also signaled tacit support for a bill that would temporarily renew dozens of tax credits. Last week, the White House threatened to veto a long-term package being negotiated by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) over concerns it would make some business-friendly credits permanent without doing so for programs benefiting the working poor.
"As a general rule, we are open to short-term extensions of many of those provisions to make sure that all of you are able to engage in basic tax planning, at least for the next couple of years, and are not having to scramble during tax time figuring out what exactly the rules are," Obama said.
But the president said his general preference was a broader package that included both business credits and "provisions that benefit working families."
Obama also said he believed "there is definitely a deal to be done" on corporate tax reform, saying there was "a lot of overlap" with principles outlined by Camp.
Still, the president acknowledged "big hurdles" standing in the way of a tax deal, including resistance to reforms that might eliminate deductions preferred by many corporate leaders. "In the short term, there are going to be some winners and losers, including in this room," Obama said. "The question then becomes, are folks willing and ready to go ahead and make that move for the sake of a simpler, more streamlined, more sensible tax system?"
The president also said Republicans were pushing for cuts to the individual tax code to account for family-owned small businesses, and that could be a stumbling block for members of his own party.
"What we’re not willing to do is to structure a tax deal in which either it blows up the deficit — essentially we can’t pay for the revenue that’s lost — or alternatively, that you get tax shifting from businesses to middle-class and working families," he said. "And so when you start introducing the individual side, it gets more complicated in terms of who’s benefiting, what are the rates, how is it restructured."
Not nearly as embarrassing as Dorkbama.
If he wants to improve infrastructure, the Keystone pipeline would be a good place to start.
Is our President proposing getting rid of unions?
infrastructure paid with tax dollars is required to be done at prevailing wage.
Here in California a forklift driver makes about $60 an hour (prevaling wage)
I bet you could find drivers for $15 an hour that were non union.
We will never sustain our infrastructure with the lame system we have in place
Shut up BO
I arrived here in the Dallas area in 2006 after surviving Hurricane Katrina in Biloxi. It has been non-stop highway and building construction here for years and years and years.
“Obama: Us Infrastructure ‘Embarassing’”.
And so are “citizen-of-the-world” Progressives who swear to uphold the Constitution yet seize the opportunity to violate it when convenient.
IMHO
Shovel Ready?????
That’s why the unions want the minimum wage hiked so much. They couldn’t care less about the hamburger flippers at fast-food joints and baristas at Starbucks. Raising the minimum wage increases their per hour pay, based on the formula that the DoL uses.
thesharkboy: US president 'embarrassing'
Obama wants the US to be more like Communist China ? I think if Obama was a member of the Chinese Government his Family would have received a Bill for the Bullets long ago
“If he wants to improve infrastructure, the Keystone pipeline would be a good place to start.”
We’ve been hearing that’s already a done deal in exchange for “Speaker” Boehner’s campaign for executive amnesty.
Obama fails to understand that the government should run the national defense and with local governments they provide fire, police and roads and bridges.
long the way big government lost this focus and got involved in everything from buying parks to welfare to spending billions on everything and anything.
Governnment steals highway funds and redistributes them to social spending forcing states to tax again thru highway bond funds for more money to replace what they gave way.
On the other hand, the one thing I will say is if they need to build some stuff, they can build it,” the president said during a Q-and-A with members of the Business Roundtable.
The president says “if they need to build some stuff”.
Liberals always made fun of “W” and Reagan, Republicans in general, for being inarticulate or using language which makes one sound less than intelligent.
How about this case. The president says the Chinese “build stuff”. Will any liberal say how inarticulate and stupid this president sounds?
And liberals have said that this president may be the most intelligent and brilliant man ever to be president. Yet he’s reduced to talking about “building stuff”. Really???
Ya, Porkulus was supposedly devoted to infrastructure improvements.
So after he got what he wanted for infrastructure early in his 1st term, he has the audacity to say our infrastructure is embarrassing???
Well, whose fault is that? Who has been president for the last six years, and a person who would set national priorities in areas such as these????
Would one of our Doofus butt GOP politicians please remind the American people that Obama had his hands on One trillion dollars that he promised would be used for infrastructure?
Oh buddy, he was going to fix it all with that money.
Now he says he is emabarrassed because of our poor infrastructure. Yah right.
Obama is the embarrassment and the country is half stoopid too for letting this shyster get away with pilfering more taxpayer money that literally disappears down the democrat rat hole.
Can’t be a real problem, or else it would ALL been fixed when he and Pelosi pissed away $800 billion tax dollars in “stimulus” .
So, King Barry, what kinds of overwhelming zoning and environmental regulations and permitting procedures did the Chinese have to deal with to build their conference centers?
Thought so.
We also suffer from paralysis by analysis. I am not in favor of eliminating environmental reviews and I'm an historical and neighborhood preservation fanatic, but the review process should be massively streamlined, and stalling litigation should be discouraged.
Obama, of course, stands with the forces of obstruction and delay on the above issues.
Part of the U.S. infrastructure problem is simply age. Airports are a simple, and dramatic, example. Modern U.S. airports are fine -- Indianapolis and Denver come to mind -- but most of our major airports are ancient, built originally in the era of prop planes and rebuilt repeatedly as air traffic grew and technology changed over the next 60 years. They are hard to replace because they are big and expensive, and because so much of the road and rail infrastructure is built up around them. But there is only so much you can do with a 50 or 60 year old facility that doesn't have enough room to grow.
I could fix airports like Detroit, or OHare, or St. Louis, but I'd want to start with a tactical nuke.
But it's unfair to compare ancient U.S. facilities with brand spanking new, or slmost so, airports in Beijing or Hong Kong. There are plenty of 1960's vintage provincial airports in China, for example, that are as grungy as anything you find in the U.S. Europe is a mixed bag and has some of the same age problems we do. I've not flown much in Central America, but my limited exposure there had me longing for the comparative luxury of Detroit.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.