Mr. President,Here Are The 'Shovel-Ready Jobs' You Promised But Never Delivered...

[GoldenSun]

Bern80 posted - that fossil fuel is "the cheapest form of energy" - I think some would disagree:

"Tax Expenditures and other *Foregone Revenues*

1.) Foreign Tax Credit ($15,300,000,000)

2.) Credit for Production of Non-conventional Fuels ($14,097,000)

3.) Oil and Gas Exploration & Development Expensing ($7,100,000,000)

4.) Oil and Gas Excess Percentage over Cost Depletion ($5,441,000,000)

5.) Credit for Enhanced Oil Recovery Costs ($1,575,000,000)

6.) Characterizing Coal Royalty Payments as Capital Gains ($986,000,000)

7.) Exclusion of Benefit Payments to Disabled Miners ($438,000,000)

8.) Exclusion of Alternative Fuels from Fuel Excise Tax ($343,000,000)

9.) Other-Fuel Exploration & Development Expensing ($342,000,000)

10.) Other-Fuel Excess of Percentage over Cost Depletion ($323,000,000)

11.) Deduction for Clean Fuel Vehicles and Refueling Property-Fossil Fuels ($209,000,000)

12.) Exception from Passive Loss Limitations for Oil and Gas ($190,000,000)

13.) Credit for Clean Coal Investment ($186,000,000)

14.) Expensing Liquid Fuel Refineries ($164,000,000)

15.) Special Rules for Mining Reclamation Reserves ($159,000,000)

16.) Natural Gas Distribution Lines Treated as Fifteen-Year Modified Accelerated Cost Recovery System Property ($138,000,000)

17.) Sulfur Regulatory Compliance Incentives for Small Diesel Refiners (Combined) ($109,000,000)

18.) 84-month Amortization Period for Coal Pollution Control ($102,000,000)

19.) Expensing Advanced Mine Safety Equipment ($32,000,000)

20.) Credit for Clean Fuel Vehicles and Refueling Property-Fossil Fuels ($14,000,000)

21.) Natural Gas Gathering Lines Treated as Seven-year Property with Alternative Minimum Tax Relief ($6,000,000)

22.) Natural Gas Arbitrage Exemption ($6,000,000)

23.) Foreign Tax Credit ($15,300,000,000)

24.) Reduced Government Take from Federal Oil and Gas Leasing ($7,049,000,000)

Grants and Other Direct Payments

1.) Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program ($6,358,000,000)

2.) Strategic Petroleum Reserve ($6,183,000,000)

3.) Black Lung Disability Trust Fund ($1,035,000,000)

4.) Highway Trust Fund ($500,000,000)

5.) Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve ($50,000,000)

6.) National Petroleum and Oil Shale Reserves ($28,000,000)

The report also identifies items that are not counted as subsidies. These include. . .

1.) The Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund

2.) Commuter Benefits Exclusion from Income

3.) Water Infrastructure

4.) LNG Terminals

Of course none of these take into account the military costs associated with our oil dependence.

From protecting the shipping lanes to move Mideast oil (which incidentally came to about $44 billion in 2007), to the wars fought over the stuff - our reliance on oil is a massive drain on our economy, our environment, and our overall fiscal health.

Renewable Energy Subsidies

Now let's take a look at renewable energy subsidies.

These are also broken down into two categories:

- Tax Expenditures and other foregone revenues

- Direct Expenditures

Tax Expenditures and other Foregone Revenues

1.) Alcohol Credit for Fuel Excise Tax ($11,577,000,000)

2.) Renewable Electricity Production Credit ($5,224,000,000)

3.) Renewable Energy Investment Credit ($259,000,000)

4.) Five-Year Modified Accelerated Cost Recovery System Period for Solar, Wind, Biomass, and Ocean Thermal ($200,000,000)

5.) Alcohol Fuel Blender Credit ($198,000,000)

6.) Biodiesel Blenders Credit and Biodiesel Excise Credit (Combined) ($182,000,000)

7.) Deduction for Clean Fuel Vehicles and Refueling Property - Biofuels ($165,000,000)

8.) Credit for Clean Renewable Energy Bond Holders ($85,000,000)

9.) Credit for Residential Solar Electric, Heating, and Fuel Cell Property ($39,000,000)

10.) Credit for Clean Fuel Vehicles and Refueling Property - Biofuels ($10,000,000)

11.) Special Depreciation for Cellulosic Plant Property ($1,000,000)

Grants and Other Direct Payments

1.) Corn-Based Ethanol ($5,007,000,000)

Although relevant, financial assistance for efforts to improve energy efficiency and decrease energy demand in buildings was not counted as a subsidy in the report.

 

[GoldenSun]

The Institute for the Analysis of Global Security:

Our dependency on oil from countries that are either politically unstable or at odds with the U.S. subjects the American economy to occasional supply disruptions, price hikes, and loss of wealth, which, according to a study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy, have cost us more than $7 TRILLION present value dollars over the last 30 years.

That is more than the cumulative cost of all of the wars fought by the U.S. since the Revolutionary War.

The transfer of wealth to oil-producing countries - $1.16 trillion over the past thirty years - significantly increased our trade deficit.

The Department of Energy estimates that each $1 billion of trade deficit costs America 27,000 jobs.

Oil imports account for almost one-third of the total U.S. deficit and, hence, are a major contributor to unemployment.

YET THE GULLIBLE CONTINUE TO SLAVISHLY SUPPORT FOSSIL FUEL AND THE "PIPELINE" !

 

[rdean]

I love these posts. Well over one hundred Republican congressmen who voted against the stimulus took hundreds of millions of dollars and created thousands of jobs they then took credit for.

Now here's the kicker. You can do a search with Google and get their names, their states and what projects they spent the money on and then took credit for. It's easy to find for anyone who wants the truth. Most right wingers would rather say "Obama lied". It's so much easier.

 

[Inthemiddle]

You know,some people really need these jobs so they're nothing to scoff at. Even if the lowest estimates are accurate,which i highly doubt they are,20,000 Jobs are still nothing to just dismiss. And they're all Private-Sector jobs. No cost to the Taxpayers. So they need to quit playing politics and get this deal done. Many Americans are counting on these jobs. Time to get this done.

Okay, so are you willing to create 10 jobs, at the expense of cutting 13 jobs?

 

[G.T.]

Mr. Jarhead Sir - normally I would accept a marine's word at it's face - but either you missed the post "I won't pull some opinion of it out of thin air as *libocalypsenow* would" by GT.... or we have different opinions as to what "non-partisan" means.

I'd like for you to show me where I've pulled opinions of the pipeline out of thin air.

You're obviously not familiar with backing up accusations.

"Libocalypsenow" - is Paulitician's former user handle.

You can apoligize to me, or be a bigger person and show everyone where I opined on the pipeline. I didn't, so you lied.

So basically you are throwing "Paulitician", who defended your "honor" ...under the Bus? LOL !

Paulitician defended my honor?

I think you forgot how to read.

Jarhead was the poster who defended my "honor,"


flashback to me entering the thread:




My initial post was re: people playing politics with the payroll taxcut vote, and blasting them for throwing it in with a pipeline bill, a dirty move by republicans.

I was ridiculing paulitician, aka libocalypsenow, for stating that dems are "playing politics with jobs," when both sides apparently do.


I said I had no opinion of the pipeline, because I hadn't studied up on it.




enter you:


you said I *did* have an opinion of the pipeline. - false, i never posted one.

you ridiculed my music, also, as an aside. chalk it up to being a dick? I dunno.....

then, you said I was partisan - false, I wasn't playing one - it was your misinterpretation of a post b/c you didn't know someone's former name.

jarhead tried to help you, clear it up, because you read something that WASNT THERE.

i also tried to help you clear it up.

then you said paulitician (WHO WAS THE TARGET OF MY RIDICULE THROUGHOUT MY POSTS, MIND YOU) defended my honor and I was throwing him under the bus?


what the fuck planet do you live on, and where did you learn how to read, is what I'd like to know.

 

[Inthemiddle]

Because there is strong evidence that the pipeline will kill more jobs than it will create. The Canadian portion of the pipeline has already proven to be a needless endeavor and has invaded the cost of doing business for oil refineries. That's going to be offset by higher pump prices which will in turn increase the cost of doing business for other businesses. Which will likely lead to layoffs. Currently there is no need for increased pipeline demand. Analysts predict that if the line is extended into the US, pipelines between Canada and here will operate at 50% capacity. Low capacity causes tolls per barrel to rise in order to cover construction and maintenance costs for the entire infrastructure.

I don't know that I've ever come across someone so entirely out to lunch. Do you think businessmen don't know how to do what's in their own financial best interest. 'Proven to be a needless endeavor'? How exactly? You're going to try to persuade us all that a multi-billion dollar oil company decided to invest a multi-billion dollar pipeline without determining whether or not it would be financially beneficial or cost effective for them? WHAT FUCKING PLANET ARE YOU ON? How exactly do you lose jobs when people are going to be needed to build and maintain something that doesn't currenlty exist? How exactly do you lose jobs from receiving more product that needs to be refined. I thought you lefties wanted to reduce our dependence on oil from the middle east and south america. This will reduce it by nearly 10%. It's going to be underground so it will be clean and even the EPA is on record as saying, once completed, it will have little to no impact on the environment.

It's the environmentaltist wack jobs that have hijacked this and it certainly seems Obama is one of them or at least catering to them because this project has everything he claims to want. More jobs, less dependence on foreign oil, and environmentally friendly. Blocking this can only be about one thing. The fact that it's 'evil', 'dirty' oil.

Bernie80 - there's not doubt that so-called "businessmen" know how to make money - what they don't have is loyalty to the country or the American people and will do whatever it takes to pad their bottomline. This entire unrest across the nation and the world is because the poor and middle-class are being ignored for the PROFIT MAKING of BIG BUSINESS that care less about the working class.

I ask again - economists state the President's Jobs Bill will create a MINIMUM of 275,000 American jobs rebuilding our cities infrastructure - what is the obvious choice.......

A 1,700 mile toxic tar sands pipeline down the middle of our country and environment for Big Oil and a foreign country? or rebuilding America?

Don't mind Bern. He's so extremist in his views that he's landed himself on my ignore list quite some time ago. And yet he still tries to reply to me.

He fails to understand that constructing the pipeline will be in the financial interest of Trans Canada regardless of whether the pipeline is actually needed to meet supply, because it will help to expand their share of the distribution market. He fails to understand that by having clients contractually locked into pumping their oil down Trans Canada's pipes, the company doesn't need to fill its capacity to make the project a financial success because they can simply increase their tolls per barrel, like they've already been doing to Canadian refineries using the Canadian portion of the Keystone pipe. He fails to understand that such increases in the cost for oil companies to do business will translate into higher pump prices, which there is a very good chance will translate into layoffs when companies cannot easily absorb the higher prices they are paying for gas. He's not in the habit of educating himself on an issue. He's in the habit of inventing information and fashioning around his ideology. If he had bothered to look into the issue before he jumped to conclusions he'd probably have already read the Canadian newspapers talking about this stuff, and about the analysts who are predicting that completion of the US portion of the Keystone project will result in all pipelines (not just the Keystone pipe) running between Canada and the US to run at 50% capacity.

He doesn't understand that the anticipated oil boom from this new technology in oil refinement didn't pan out because of the recession, pipeline capacity that is well beyond demand, because of all the new infrastructure that had been built. He doesn't understand that all these higher prices will result in increased priced for Americans which are channeled into the Canadian economy and out of our own. He doesn't understand any of that. All he understands is that Obama is not yet ready to approve of the project. And therefore, it MUST be good for the country.

 

[Inthemiddle]

Bernie80 - there's not doubt that so-called "businessmen" know how to make money - what they don't have is loyalty to the country or the American people and will do whatever it takes to pad their bottomline. This entire unrest across the nation and the world is because the poor and middle-class are being ignored for the PROFIT MAKING of BIG BUSINESS that care less about the working class.

I ask again - economists state the President's Jobs Bill will create a MINIMUM of 275,000 American jobs rebuilding our cities infrastructure - what is the obvious choice.......

A 1,700 mile toxic tar sands pipeline down the middle of our country and environment for Big Oil and a foreign country? or rebuilding America?

This entire unrest across the nation and the world is because the poor and middle-class have become used to entitlements that we can't afford. Free housing, free medical care, free food, free cell phones, subsidies for buying the "proper" car and the right storm windows actually COST MONEY that those of us left paying taxes don't have.

Most Funny that Repubs complain about "entitlements' when it is documented that Red States are the ones that receive most of the Federal Money for so-called entitlements>

1) Did you know that if you live in Alabama, have a low-enough household income or are eligible for certain government programs, like free school lunches for your children, that you could be eligible for a free cell phone?

2)The Tax Foundation has released a fascinating report showing which states benefit from Federal Tax and Spending policies, and which states foot the bill.

The report shows that of the 32 states (and the District of Columbia) receiving MORE in federal spending than they PAY in federal taxes --

76% are Red States that voted for George Bush in 2000.

Indeed, 17 of the 20 (85%) states receiving the MOST federal spending per dollar of federal taxes paid are "Red States".

If only those lazy Republicans would get a job !

That cell phone program is nation wide. I'd be interested in seeing the report of which you speak.

 

[Bern80]

A small example for small minded people - if you have solar panels to provide energy to your house, other than the initial costs - how will your costs for energy increase? Maybe tax people for the sunlight - LOL !

You again prove that you know nothing about basic economics. If solar was actually a better option than fossil fuels people would DO IT. The fact is it not as reliable. Nor can most afford the initial investment. You're so easily manipulated it's hilarious. Thanks for proving you don't give a shit about jobs.

And you believe that digging up our entire countryside is a great idea and produces jobs? BIG OIL has fewer employees now than they did ten years ago !

You're lieing or are the most fucking stupid human on earth. Someone (we call them employees in the real world) has to dig the trench, someone has to build it. Those are called jobs you idiot. And since it's going to be underground, in five years time no one is even going to know it's there. I REPEAT the EPA has already signed off on this.

That's how old your ideas are.

Fortunately for me rules of basic economics have stood the test of time pretty well.

 

[Bern80]

You've just witnessed the damage BIG OIL has done to areas like the Gulf of Mexico and their response from that disastrous spill. Who suffered - besides the environment, the livelihood of millions of Americans living in that surrounding areas.
You are so naive to believe and trust in companies and politicians that have been screwing Americans for decades.


DON'T WORRY PEOPLE - PIPELINES NEVER LEAK !!

2000 On January 27, in Winchester, Kentucky, a pipeline accident

2000 On February 5, a pipeline failed and spilled

2000 A petroleum pipeline failure in Greenville, Texas, on March 9

2000 A pipeline released fuel oil near Chalk Point, Maryland, on April 7.

2000 On June 7, a stopple fitting weld failed on a pipeline, causing a rupture

2000 A 30 inch diameter natural gas pipeline

2000 A Bulldozer ruptured a 12 inch diameter NGL pipeline

2000 On November 3, a front end loader punctured an 8 inch diameter pipeline

2001 A 12-inch natural gas pipeline exploded in Weatherford, Texas on March 22

JUST SOME OF THE ***100 PLUS PIPELINE*** LEAKS SINCE 2000 !!!

Who ever promised you there would never be an accident? You idiot libs keep proving every negative stereotype the right has about you. You think you're entitled to a risk free existence. YOUR'E NOT. You think BP is happy that disaster happened? You people simply don't get it. Everything stupid thing you accuse big business of doing makes ZERO sense to actually do from the businesses financial perspective. I really wish there was never going to be another oil spill ever again. The problem is no reasonable person can promise you that. You don't forgoe the cheapest form of energy available because from time to time there might be an accident.

"Cheapest form of energy" ? - you mean as far as you're concerned.... the ONLY form of energy.
There has been more wars started, more governments topple, more people killed and suffering because of your "cheap form of energy.

No as in CHEAPEST you dip shit. As in the one energy option the most people can afford. As in the one that will NOT lower everyone's standard of living if fucking wacko environmentalist morons like yourself get their way and force everyone else to buy some other form of energy.

 

[Bern80]

I don't know that I've ever come across someone so entirely out to lunch. Do you think businessmen don't know how to do what's in their own financial best interest. 'Proven to be a needless endeavor'? How exactly? You're going to try to persuade us all that a multi-billion dollar oil company decided to invest a multi-billion dollar pipeline without determining whether or not it would be financially beneficial or cost effective for them? WHAT FUCKING PLANET ARE YOU ON? How exactly do you lose jobs when people are going to be needed to build and maintain something that doesn't currenlty exist? How exactly do you lose jobs from receiving more product that needs to be refined. I thought you lefties wanted to reduce our dependence on oil from the middle east and south america. This will reduce it by nearly 10%. It's going to be underground so it will be clean and even the EPA is on record as saying, once completed, it will have little to no impact on the environment.

It's the environmentaltist wack jobs that have hijacked this and it certainly seems Obama is one of them or at least catering to them because this project has everything he claims to want. More jobs, less dependence on foreign oil, and environmentally friendly. Blocking this can only be about one thing. The fact that it's 'evil', 'dirty' oil.

Bernie80 - there's not doubt that so-called "businessmen" know how to make money - what they don't have is loyalty to the country or the American people and will do whatever it takes to pad their bottomline. This entire unrest across the nation and the world is because the poor and middle-class are being ignored for the PROFIT MAKING of BIG BUSINESS that care less about the working class.

I ask again - economists state the President's Jobs Bill will create a MINIMUM of 275,000 American jobs rebuilding our cities infrastructure - what is the obvious choice.......

A 1,700 mile toxic tar sands pipeline down the middle of our country and environment for Big Oil and a foreign country? or rebuilding America?

Don't mind Bern. He's so extremist in his views that he's landed himself on my ignore list quite some time ago. And yet he still tries to reply to me.

He fails to understand that constructing the pipeline will be in the financial interest of Trans Canada regardless of whether the pipeline is actually needed to meet supply, because it will help to expand their share of the distribution market. He fails to understand that by having clients contractually locked into pumping their oil down Trans Canada's pipes, the company doesn't need to fill its capacity to make the project a financial success because they can simply increase their tolls per barrel, like they've already been doing to Canadian refineries using the Canadian portion of the Keystone pipe. He fails to understand that such increases in the cost for oil companies to do business will translate into higher pump prices, which there is a very good chance will translate into layoffs when companies cannot easily absorb the higher prices they are paying for gas. He's not in the habit of educating himself on an issue. He's in the habit of inventing information and fashioning around his ideology. If he had bothered to look into the issue before he jumped to conclusions he'd probably have already read the Canadian newspapers talking about this stuff, and about the analysts who are predicting that completion of the US portion of the Keystone project will result in all pipelines (not just the Keystone pipe) running between Canada and the US to run at 50% capacity.

He doesn't understand that the anticipated oil boom from this new technology in oil refinement didn't pan out because of the recession, pipeline capacity that is well beyond demand, because of all the new infrastructure that had been built. He doesn't understand that all these higher prices will result in increased priced for Americans which are channeled into the Canadian economy and out of our own. He doesn't understand any of that. All he understands is that Obama is not yet ready to approve of the project. And therefore, it MUST be good for the country.

Yet another idiot who thinks price goes up when supply increases. Time to go back to basic econ folks.....

Supply and demand - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Navy1960]

When the State Department ordered TransCanada to find a new route, Reuters reported that the delay set back the $7 billion, Canada-to-Texas pipeline by more than a year. The pipeline is projected to deliver about 700,000 barrels a day.

[See a collection of political cartoons on energy policy.]

While Keystone's development and the potential economic catalyst to the region was stalled, Nebraska lawmakers voted as if they had a sense of urgency and actually understood how many families are hurting and how many bread-winners need to earn a decent living. They voted unanimously not only to move the pipeline but they also approved a second bill that funds a study that will identify the appropriate pipeline route. Heineman signed both bills and in 15 days Nebraska's lawmakers brought to a close the special legislative session that was dedicated exclusively to creating regulations for the Keystone-XL pipeline.
Nebraska Moves With Urgency on Keystone XL--Why Can't the Feds? - Energy Intelligence (usnews.com)

A few things come to mind on this one, if the original issue was that the pipeline was to cross over the aquifer then Nebraska objected to that and that resulted in the State Department stopping this pipeline for a new study and since that time the state of Nebraska has shown in a very big way they wish this pipeline to go through and fund a study for a reroute as well as TransCanada syaing they will reroute the pipeline then I fail to see what would be the delay in this issue other than using it as a political football.

Your first mistake is putting faith in an article written by "Petroleum Analyst" Gregg Laskoski who writes for something called "Gasbuddy" - really?

First the point was to show that the state legislature of Nebraska which was among those had originally objecting to the route of the pipeline has moved to have another route put in place, the author of the article not-withstanding. If the source of the article is an issue then perhaps the local Nebraska paper will be better suited,

A Canadian pipeline company named TransCanada was likely unknown to most Nebraskans before this year, but the developments of the last semester have changed that picture in a big way.

After rallies in front of the White House and Nebraska Capitol, an advertisement that drew more than a few boos from Husker football fans and passionate, hours-long hearings in front of the U.S. State Department, the Nebraska Legislature and now Congress, TransCanada has become a household name.

This coming year, it's likely to stay that way.

Nebraska will join TransCanada and the State Department to find a new route for the company's controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline after immense pressure to reroute the project. Recently, Nebraskan members of Congress have also gotten in on the fray, with an eye on speeding up the process.
Daily Nebraskan

It would appear any fights in congress over this issue should be focused on the number of jobs it produces and it can be done without harming the environment. As I pointed out, putting a pipeline over a large fresh water source is complete nonsense, but TransCanada as well as the state of Nebraska now have agreed to move it. So given those factors any fights over this issue that are not focused on jobs or future concerns after it becomes operational are political regardless of what party may use it.

 

[Oldstyle]

"I ask again - economists state the President's Jobs Bill will create a MINIMUM of 275,000 American jobs rebuilding our cities infrastructure - what is the obvious choice.......

A 1,700 mile toxic tar sands pipeline down the middle of our country and environment for Big Oil and a foreign country? or rebuilding America?" Golden Sun

I was bemused by this post. Does the poster not grasp the HUGE difference between an infrastructure project that is paid for completely by the private sector and generates tens of thousands of jobs that will in turn generate large amounts of tax revenues...and the President's infrastructure jobs program that would be totally funded by tax payer dollars?

Seriously...if you can't see why one of these things is FAR better for the country's economy than the other then I'm not sure you belong in a discussion about economics and jobs in the first place.

 

[Bern80]

"I ask again - economists state the President's Jobs Bill will create a MINIMUM of 275,000 American jobs rebuilding our cities infrastructure - what is the obvious choice.......

A 1,700 mile toxic tar sands pipeline down the middle of our country and environment for Big Oil and a foreign country? or rebuilding America?" Golden Sun

I was bemused by this post. Does the poster not grasp the HUGE difference between an infrastructure project that is paid for completely by the private sector and generates tens of thousands of jobs that will in turn generate large amounts of tax revenues...and the President's infrastructure jobs program that would be totally funded by tax payer dollars?

Seriously...if you can't see why one of these things is FAR better for the country's economy than the other then I'm not sure you belong in a discussion about economics and jobs in the first place.

Because the dirty little secret about people like Golden is this isn't a discussion about economics and jobs. If it was, the choice should be obvious to everyone. The discussion for them is about completely shutting off fossil fuel based energy. That is evidenced by Golden's use of the word 'toxic' above. An entirely unrealistic and unfounded adjective for this project. Then they use the worst economic reasoning imaginable (the factually incorrect kind) to try to economically rationalize their enviro whacko positions. "cost goes up when supply goes up". I wonder if they informed the people who write high school economics books that the four basic laws of supply and demand have to be re-written.

 

[paulitician]

These jobs are unfortunately gone. For now anyway. I still believe this President will agree to this pipeline in the end. It's all about the political games for right now though. He always says one thing but does another. He's just duping his far Left 'Global Warming' base again. He'll screw them over eventually. He always does. He knows they have no one else to support but him. This pipeline will happen. Watch and see.

 

[Bern80]

These jobs are unfortunately gone. For now anyway. I still believe this President will agree to this pipeline in the end. It's all about the political games for right now though. He always says one thing but does another. He's just duping his far Left 'Global Warming' base again. He'll screw them over eventually. He always does. He knows they have no one else to support but him. This pipeline will happen. Watch and see.

I'm not sure he can afford to wait, or the people waiting for jobs can afford to wait. TransCanada needs to get this oil refined somwhere and if Obama won't allow them to do that at the refineries in the gulf, or takes to much time deciding the rumor is the pipeline will be diverted to Vancouver and the oil will be shipped to China for refinement.

 

[Inthemiddle]

"I ask again - economists state the President's Jobs Bill will create a MINIMUM of 275,000 American jobs rebuilding our cities infrastructure - what is the obvious choice.......

A 1,700 mile toxic tar sands pipeline down the middle of our country and environment for Big Oil and a foreign country? or rebuilding America?" Golden Sun

I was bemused by this post. Does the poster not grasp the HUGE difference between an infrastructure project that is paid for completely by the private sector and generates tens of thousands of jobs that will in turn generate large amounts of tax revenues...and the President's infrastructure jobs program that would be totally funded by tax payer dollars?

Seriously...if you can't see why one of these things is FAR better for the country's economy than the other then I'm not sure you belong in a discussion about economics and jobs in the first place.

I'm sorry, maybe we're thinking about different bills. But I was pretty sure that the President's jobs bill was mostly a series of tax cuts on businesses. If I recall correctly, some $250 billion in tax cuts and credits for businesses, and only $50 billion on infrastructure projects.