Obama to Call for $50 Billion Spending on Public Works

New York Times ^ | September 6, 2010 | SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

[reaganaut1]

President Obama on Monday is to call for as much as $50 billion in government spending to start up a long-term public works plan emphasizing transportation projects – roads, rail and airport runways – over the next six years.

Mr. Obama will lay out the plan, which is intended to promote the quick creation of construction jobs but would require Congressional approval, during a trip to Milwaukee on Monday afternoon, where he will observe Labor Day by attending a union festival. The spending is one part of a broader economic recovery package that Mr. Obama is to unveil during a speech in Cleveland on Wednesday.

With Democrats looking at a bleak election season, in large part because of high unemployment, the White House has been scrambling to find ways to jump-start the sagging economy.

While Mr. Obama’s plan would call for investment over six years, the White House says it would be front-loaded with an initial investment of $50 billion in taxpayer money, to help create jobs in the shorter term. The administration says it would work with Congress to find ways to pay for the plan, so that it would not add to the nation’s rising deficit. One possibility would be to cut existing subsidies for oil and gas exploration and production.

White House officials said Mr. Obama wanted to rebuild 15,000 miles of roads, construct and maintain 4,000 miles of railway – enough track to span the continent — and rehabilitate or reconstruct 150 miles of airport runways while putting in place a system that would reduce travel time and airport delays.

The president will also call for what the White House is describing as an “infrastructure bank” that would focus on paying for national and regional transportation projects.

[littleharbour]

mewzilla wrote:

“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money. Alexis de Tocqueville”

The problem isn’t bribing the public with the public’s money - it’s bribing the public with borrowed money. Our tiny province of 850,000 people (New Brunswick) had a deficit last year of $750,000,000, edging the accumulated debt to about $8.5 billion. We’re now in the midst of a provincial election. The governing party’s solution to the deficit? Promising a “free” laptop to every junior and senior high student in the province! This populist madness infects almost every democracy in the world.

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

This level of continued spending is literally high treason.

Obama's mantra lately has been "The GOP has no new ideas."

Maybe merit, not newness, should be the criterion. And when did spending, borrowing and bribing become "new?"

[longtermmemmory]

This is VAPORWARE or is that vaporlaw...

This will not pass before elections, it will not create new jobs, just keep unionistas employed IF IT PASSED BEFORE NOV 2.

This is an empty promise.

[historyrepeatz]

More money laundering using taxpayer’s money. How many of these does it take to kill America? Lady liberty just won’t die yet, as hard as they try to kill it.

[fujimoh]

Wasn’t the 800 billion stimulus supposed to be for infrastructure? Shovel ready jobs? What the hell is this ... pocket padding for the unions?

[Niuhuru]

More monuments to his greatness of course. His face, Michelle’s butt alone will take one billion in construction alone and the rest of his term in regards to time frame. And then his children will be immortalized in the schools. the rest will be used as get away money and the purchase of an island where he can rule as king or to purchase the presidency of Haiti.

[Niuhuru]

Well, lets be smart and either turn our homes into fortresses or bail.

[tet68]

The administration says it would work with Congress to find ways to pay for the plan, so that it would not add to the nation’s rising deficit. One possibility would be to cut existing subsidies for oil and gas exploration and production.

Would not add to the deficit?
The contempt shown by these people for the intelligence
of the average American is beyond belief.
Also I’m SURE cutting oil and gas subsidies won’t
result in higher oil and fuel costs. /S

[StormEye]

"These jerks are “fighting the last depression”. In the 1930’s public works meant a huge number of unskilled men with actual shovels building things."

The communist Democrats' collective mindset has been thoroughly stuck in 1930's Depression Era thinking for 50 years. They consider the FDR years of socialist federal programs their glory days. They yearn to do those same things over again. The communist Democrats want to (and will) create an economic depression in order to impose their totalitarian socialist agenda on America. The Democrats want soup lines and bleak Depression Era conditions all across America. That's where they want the American middle class to be -- poor and beaten down.

I also believe the economic trouble of 2008 near the end of Bush's term was completely planned and instigated by them in cahoots with corrupt Wall Street financiers who hoped to get paid off by the Democrats for their cooperation in the scheme. This was their initial attempt at establishing Depression Era economic state in America. The Democrats are still at it today.