Obama plans huge pubic works projects

[JimH52]

Obama banking on large-scale public works project - Yahoo! News

We are sliding deeper and deeper into economic disaster. Someone needs to do something quickly IMHO.

 

[Paulie]

This might prop us up for a little while, but there will be another bust to follow due to these low rates and the new money waiting for a home.

I'm all for infrastructure projects, as it benefits the nation as a whole and we desperately need it, but not in the way it's GOING to come.

It's going to be paid for in inflated Dollars, and my guess is most of the work will be given to unions and immigrants.

 

[Anguille]

"huge pubic works"?

size matters.

 

[Gord]

Obama banking on large-scale public works project - Yahoo! News

We are sliding deeper and deeper into economic disaster. Someone needs to do something quickly IMHO.

That's what FDR thought too. So he extended the Great Depression by another seven years...

 

[Valerie]

This might prop us up for a little while, but there will be another bust to follow due to these low rates and the new money waiting for a home.

I'm all for infrastructure projects, as it benefits the nation as a whole and we desperately need it, but not in the way it's GOING to come.

It's going to be paid for in inflated Dollars, and my guess is most of the work will be given to unions and immigrants.

I agree. At least it is money well spent.

Sort of like investing in your home with a home equity loan even though you also have a huge mortgage. Your debt burden is huge, but at least you can think of it as money well spent.

 

[Valerie]

"huge pubic works"?

size matters.

Obama said his plan would employ millions of people by "making the single largest new investment in our national infrastructure since the creation of the federal highway system in the 1950s." He said state officials would lose the federal dollars if they did not quickly use the money to repair highways and bridges.

 

[Valerie]

>

More than 5,000 highway projects are ready to go today, state transportation officials say, if Congress will pony up $64.3 billion as part of an economic aid plan. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, which compiled the list, said the projects would provide jobs and help reduce a backlog of crumbling roads and bridges.

A bipartisan group of governors recently met with Obama to press for some $136 billion in infrastructure projects in addition to money for health care costs.

Several governors welcomed Obama's economic plan.

 

[Red Dawn]

Obama banking on large-scale public works project - Yahoo! News

We are sliding deeper and deeper into economic disaster. Someone needs to do something quickly IMHO.

That's exactly what this country needs to do, and it should have been done years ago. Spending money on roads, bridges, and infrastructure makes a hell of a lot more sense than spending trillions on the Iraq war and bailing out wall street tycoons. And infrastructure puts people to work, and pays for itself in the long run.

 

[Valerie]

That's exactly what this country needs to do, and it should have been done years ago. Spending money on roads, bridges, and infrastructure makes a hell of a lot more sense than spending trillions on the Iraq war and bailing out wall street tycoons. And infrastructure puts people to work, and pays for itself in the long run.

 

[JimH52]

In any case, we will be spending money that we don't have. May as well spend it on the good old USA, rather than propping up an Iraq government that is doing everything it can to get us out.

 

[Manuel]

That's a good decision! They should create new jobs instead of wasting money for bailouts.

 

[Gunny]

That's exactly what this country needs to do, and it should have been done years ago. Spending money on roads, bridges, and infrastructure makes a hell of a lot more sense than spending trillions on the Iraq war and bailing out wall street tycoons. And infrastructure puts people to work, and pays for itself in the long run.

Damn. I'll HAVE to rep you for this. You actually said something that makes sense and didn't say Bush's name once.

 

[Old Rocks]

That's what FDR thought too. So he extended the Great Depression by another seven years...

The infrastructure that was built during the Depression through public works projects were absolutely neccessary to our war effort in WW2. The young men that recieved training and work through the CCC were the members of the Greatest Generation, and the training they recieved was critical to our efforts early in that war. Many of the buildings in our National Parks were built by the WPA. And the REA was a tremendous boon to the agriculteral sector. Of course, all of this just helped the average US citizen, and did not directly benefit the kind of wealthy ass that has created the present economic debacle.

 

[Zoomie1980]

Obama banking on large-scale public works project - Yahoo! News

We are sliding deeper and deeper into economic disaster. Someone needs to do something quickly IMHO.

Won't matter. This isn't 1930. Most of the people loosing their jobs are NOT construction workers. Many are, but most are not. And if you add all of what he would like to do, in the end, it's just a drop in the bucket, not enough to really make more than a minor dent. And once they are done, that's it. They are done.

 

[Old Rocks]

Won't matter. This isn't 1930. Most of the people loosing their jobs are NOT construction workers. Many are, but most are not. And if you add all of what he would like to do, in the end, it's just a drop in the bucket, not enough to really make more than a minor dent. And once they are done, that's it. They are done.

Fellow, men and women are capable of almost any kind of work, if that is all there is. And modern construction involves a lot more than just concrete, steel, and wood. And once the projects, such as building a distributed grid, is done, it is not over. No more than the building of the dams on the Columbia ceased to be a job creator once the dams were built. The electricity and water reservoirs created by the dams created many more jobs. A distributed grid picking up electricity from wind, solar, geothermal, and nuclear, would continue to create jobs for several generations. Just as the projects from the Great Depression did.

 

[dilloduck]

In any case, we will be spending money that we don't have. May as well spend it on the good old USA, rather than propping up an Iraq government that is doing everything it can to get us out.

Let me get this straight. America is broke but it's going to pay to fix our entire country. We can't afford to borrow ANY more so what exactly do we use to make this " investment" in America ?

 

[BaronVonBigmeat]

I agree with the sentiment that this makes more sense than paying for the Iraq war and for bailouts. But that's not saying much. I hope at the very least that it's largely used to repair existing bridges and so forth. Unfortunately in politics, it is much more glamorous to roll out new stuff than to keep the old stuff in good working order.

And it won't be some miracle tonic for the economy. We proved that during the 1930's and Japan proved it during the 1990's (are they still in a recession?).

Here's another way to look at it. The refrigerator analogy. Let's say it's hot one day and your a/c isn't quite keeping up. You open the door to your refrigerator because hey, it says it produces 500 BTU's of cooling, so your room should cool down, right? No, it will get warmer. You produced 500 BTU's of cooling, allright. But in order to do that, the motor/compressor had to produce 1000 BTU's of heating. And you can't get the cooling without the heating, it's impossible.

Likewise, a big grandiose make-work program from Washington may indeed produce say, 100k jobs. But those jobs have to be paid for with taxes. And those higher taxes (or borrowing, or inflation) will surely kill jobs elsewhere. Or result in some other form of economic misery. Really, if creating jobs and wealth and prosperity were possible by government fiat, then surely one of the communist countries would have have discovered the secret.

Truthfully, we should be auctioning off our roads to the highest bidder, to stay solvent and to ensure the roads remain well maintained. A privatized road system, or at least a privatized Interstate system, would eliminate traffic jams, encourage mass transit, and put the brakes on suburban sprawl, which is the real root cause of our oil addiction. Unfortunately we will probably expand our road network tremendously, thus setting off another wave of sprawl just like the original interstate highway program did.

 

[Gord]

The infrastructure that was built during the Depression through public works projects were absolutely neccessary to our war effort in WW2. The young men that recieved training and work through the CCC were the members of the Greatest Generation, and the training they recieved was critical to our efforts early in that war. Many of the buildings in our National Parks were built by the WPA. And the REA was a tremendous boon to the agriculteral sector. Of course, all of this just helped the average US citizen, and did not directly benefit the kind of wealthy ass that has created the present economic debacle.

That's all great. But it doesn't change the fact that FDR was running the country into the ground. And Obama wants to follow in FDR's footsteps.

 

[auditor0007]

My biggest beef was that they would just throw money out there as a stimulus package. Many in congress were talking upwards of $300 billion. I've been saying that we need a massive infrastructure program to put people back to work.

I hope the package is big enough, and it has to be over the next few years, not just a one year package. If they spend $250 billion per year over the next four years, they'll create nearly three million new jobs, and we will actually get something for our money.

There is little doubt that eventually, taxes will need to be raised. Put people to work, get the economy moving, then raise taxes. If the economy is good and the markets are increasing in value rather than declining, raising taxes won't hurt very much, so long as the increases are reasonable.