Free Republic

Question of the Day Q: Five years after the financial collapse, are you more willing to spend and use credit? Yes No Not sure

The U.S. Congress is discussing a second economic stimulus bill that could include nearly $15 billion in infrastructure spending, a senior member of the House of Representatives told Reuters on Tuesday.Rep. James Oberstar, a Minnesota Democrat who chairs the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said a stimulus package could include "accelerating" pay-outs of $9.5 billion from the federal trust fund dedicated to road construction and maintenance. "You can have 700,000 people working in three months. We should have done it this spring," Oberstar said in an interview. The money would go to funding more than 2,600 projects, he said. States would...

"Another Failure on Climate Change," the June 11 editorial about the recent Senate debate on global warming legislation, was off the mark. Questioning the scheduling of the debate because of high gas prices makes little sense. If gas prices don’t go down, should we never address global warming? Of course not. Many Republicans used gas prices as a reason not to act, even though the long-term solution to gas prices lies in the new green technologies that will come to the fore once we do act. In addition, our bill sets aside more than $2 trillion that can be...

<p>SACRAMENTO – California government is poised to spend up to 3.1 percent more this year over last year - despite the biggest budget deficit in history.</p> <p>How is this possible? Through a lot more borrowing and deferred payments, according to an analysis of the latest budget proposal prepared by the nonpartisan legislative analyst. The July 14 report obtained by The Orange County Register details how the state's reliance on borrowed money shrouds what is actually being spent.</p>