Obama proposes $50 billion for road, rail, airways

President Barack Obama would spend $50 billion on revamping highways, rails and airport runways to create jobs in the near term and improve the long-term U.S. transportation network. The $50 billion would be spent in the first year and be part of a six-year transportation bill that must be passed by Congress, an administration official said. An infrastructure bank would be created under the plan to leverage federal funds with state, local and private funding for important projects. Following is a summary of the proposal, its likely impact and possible ways to offset its cost.

WHERE THE MONEY WOULD BE SPENT

The White House said it would:

• Rebuild 150,000 miles of roads and bridges while expanding capacity on some of them.
  
• Construct and maintain 4,000 miles of rail lines, both high-speed rail and commuter lines. The plan also would "invest in a long-overdue overhaul of the Amtrak passenger fleet."
  
• Rehabilitate or reconstruct 150 miles of airport runways and put in place a NextGen air-traffic control system. Among improvements would be use of a satellite-based surveillance system, which would be more accurate than ground-based radar.

Read more: Reuters

 

stop proposing and do the shit.

 

I thought the $787 billion stimulus was suppose to do this. It was reported today that $516 billion of the stimulus was already spent. The balance of $271 billion has yet to be spent. Mr.President why not use that money rather than spending more money and putting the nation deeper in debt. Mr. President please do not think we are stupid. Late night comedians like Letterman and Steward are now making fun of you Mr.President.

 

the spending was to create jobs...Im cool with that. The problem with tax cuts is that you have to cut back on some type of service the Govt provides and the repub's did not want to talk about that. they kept dancing around that question. now they are backpeddling off of it.

increase in taxes never hurt the economy look at the clinton years.

 

lol it's about time...Amtrak's passenger fleet looks archaic compared to some european/japanese counterparts

 

The sooner we can get more jobs, the better off our country will be. More government jobs is a step in the right direction, but it's not enough.

Long term we're still in big trouble because most of the manufacturing jobs are overseas. "Made in China." Call a Customer Support number and you end up in India or the Phillipines.

We need a complete overhaul in everything from tax breaks to big companies sending jobs overseas to our young people's educational priorities.

In other words, we as a country need to CREATE jobs and careers. That will be a problem long after obama is gone...

 

Yeah, we definately can use all the jobs we can get. However, I just don't think government jobs are the best the way to go. Those are usually temporary and pay next to nothing. And it continues to give the government a little more control, then what they should have. It is hard though, because you can't just make a place hire, if they're not hiring. So, hopefully this will be a good step in the right direction. They should send some of that money toward KY, got a lot of potholes in the area that need filling! lol...

 

How about putting some of that shit into schools?

 

Obama is making the same mistake that Japan made. "Printing money" Building bridge to nowhere all under the guise of stimulating the economy and improving the "infrastructure" while doing it with less tax receipts. Japan did not heed the warnings and its economy never recovered from the 80s hay day.

...and now we are getting ready to do the same thing.

For the past 50 years we have been borrowing money with no way to pay it back. Its getting worse.

 

Very well said, Sir.

I completely agree.


We are headed towards hyperinflation.

It's about to get ugly.

 

The way to put the economy in the direction it needs to go has been the same answer for the past 4 president. We have to reign in trading...and the supplanting of jobs outside of the US. The reason China and India are emergent economies is because WE created them. We shipped high tech jobs to India, and low skilled jobs to china.


We decreased the productivity of our own country at the same time increasing the income and wealth of another. Until we make trading equal and until we address companies pushing jobs to these countries nothing will change and we will keep putting a band aid on a gapping wound.