I do favor this in principle.

[ivanm]

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Obama assails GOP, promotes new jobs program
MILWAUKEE — A combative President Barack Obama rolled out a long-term jobs program Monday that would exceed $50 billion to rebuild roads, railways and runways, and coupled it with a blunt campaign-season assault on Republicans for causing Americans' hard economic times.

GOP leaders instantly assailed Obama's proposal as an ineffective one that would simply raise already excessive federal spending. Many congressional Democrats are also likely to be reluctant to boost expenditures and increase federal deficits just weeks before elections that will determine control of Congress.

Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, cautioned, "If we are going to get anything done, Republican cooperation, which has been all but non-existent recently, will be necessary."

That left the plan with low, if not impossible, odds of becoming law this year. When Congress returns from summer recess in mid-September, it is likely to remain in session for only a few weeks before lawmakers return home to campaign for re-election.

Administration officials said that even if Congress quickly approved the program, it would not produce jobs until sometime next year. That means the proposal's only pre-election impact may be a political one as the White House tries to demonstrate to voters that it is working to boost the economy and create jobs.

..At a Labor Day speech in Milwaukee, Obama said Republicans are betting that between now and the Nov. 2 elections, Americans will forget the Republican economic policies that led to the recession. He said Republicans have opposed virtually everything he has done to help the economy, and have proposed solutions that have only made the problem worse.

"That philosophy didn't work out so well for middle-class families all across America," Obama told a cheering crowd at a labor gathering. "It didn't work out so well for our country. All it did was rack up record deficits and result in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression."

.He said Repubicans have consistently opposed his economic proposals and seem to be running on a slogan of "No, we can't," playing off his 2008 presidential campaign mantra of "Yes we can."

"If I said fish live in the sea, they'd say no," Obama said.

Republicans made clear that Obama should not expect any help from them.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said the plan "should be met with justifiable skepticism." He said it would raise taxes while Americans are "still looking for the 'shovel-ready' jobs they were promised more than a year ago" in the $814 billion economic stimulus measure.

..The House Republican leader, John Boehner of Ohio, added "We don't need more government 'stimulus' spending. We need to end Washington Democrats' out-of-control spending spree, stop their tax hikes, and create jobs by eliminating the job-killing uncertainty that is hampering our small businesses."

Administration officials are hunting broadly for ways to revive the economy. But they are likely to drop a separate proposal to renew a law exempting companies from paying Social Security taxes on any unemployed workers they hire, according to a White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision was not final.

Casual in brown slacks and open-collar white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, Obama took a populist tack in his speech, mixing attacks on Republicans with praise for working-class and middle-class Americans.

He said he'd "keep fighting, every single day, every single hour, every single minute to turn this economy around." He said interest groups he has battled "talk about me like a dog."

He also acknowledged that the past eight months of modest private-sector job growth hasn't been enough to bring down the unemployment rate. He said economic problems facing families today are "more serious than ever," and seemed to ask the audience in Milwaukee — and voters nationwide — for patience.

"Now here's the honest truth, the plain truth. There's no silver bullet, there's no quick fix to these problems," he said, adding that it will take time to "reverse the damage of a decade worth of policies" that caused the recession.

Administration officials said the transportation plan's initial $50 billion would be the beginning of a six-year program of transportation improvements, but they did not give an overall figure. The proposal has a longer-range focus than last year's economic stimulus bill, which was more targeted on immediate job creation.

The plan calls for rebuilding 150,000 miles of roads; building and maintaining 4,000 miles of rail lines and 150 miles of airport runways, and installing a new air navigation system to reduce travel times and delays.

Obama assails GOP, promotes new jobs program
Proposal will exceed $50 billion to rebuild roads, railways and runwaysVideo
 Obama touts modernizing rails, electrical grid .Advertisement | ad info
. Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP
President Barack Obama speaks on the economy at the Milwaukee Laborfest in Milwaukee on Monday.By DARLENE SUPERVILLE
 
updated 57 minutes ago
Share Print Font: +-MILWAUKEE — A combative President Barack Obama rolled out a long-term jobs program Monday that would exceed $50 billion to rebuild roads, railways and runways, and coupled it with a blunt campaign-season assault on Republicans for causing Americans' hard economic times.

GOP leaders instantly assailed Obama's proposal as an ineffective one that would simply raise already excessive federal spending. Many congressional Democrats are also likely to be reluctant to boost expenditures and increase federal deficits just weeks before elections that will determine control of Congress.

Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, cautioned, "If we are going to get anything done, Republican cooperation, which has been all but non-existent recently, will be necessary."

That left the plan with low, if not impossible, odds of becoming law this year. When Congress returns from summer recess in mid-September, it is likely to remain in session for only a few weeks before lawmakers return home to campaign for re-election.

Administration officials said that even if Congress quickly approved the program, it would not produce jobs until sometime next year. That means the proposal's only pre-election impact may be a political one as the White House tries to demonstrate to voters that it is working to boost the economy and create jobs.

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..At a Labor Day speech in Milwaukee, Obama said Republicans are betting that between now and the Nov. 2 elections, Americans will forget the Republican economic policies that led to the recession. He said Republicans have opposed virtually everything he has done to help the economy, and have proposed solutions that have only made the problem worse.

Story: Wisconsin has been stung by recent job losses
"That philosophy didn't work out so well for middle-class families all across America," Obama told a cheering crowd at a labor gathering. "It didn't work out so well for our country. All it did was rack up record deficits and result in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression."

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.He said Repubicans have consistently opposed his economic proposals and seem to be running on a slogan of "No, we can't," playing off his 2008 presidential campaign mantra of "Yes we can."

"If I said fish live in the sea, they'd say no," Obama said.

Republicans made clear that Obama should not expect any help from them.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said the plan "should be met with justifiable skepticism." He said it would raise taxes while Americans are "still looking for the 'shovel-ready' jobs they were promised more than a year ago" in the $814 billion economic stimulus measure.

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..The House Republican leader, John Boehner of Ohio, added "We don't need more government 'stimulus' spending. We need to end Washington Democrats' out-of-control spending spree, stop their tax hikes, and create jobs by eliminating the job-killing uncertainty that is hampering our small businesses."

Administration officials are hunting broadly for ways to revive the economy. But they are likely to drop a separate proposal to renew a law exempting companies from paying Social Security taxes on any unemployed workers they hire, according to a White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision was not final.

Casual in brown slacks and open-collar white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, Obama took a populist tack in his speech, mixing attacks on Republicans with praise for working-class and middle-class Americans.

He said he'd "keep fighting, every single day, every single hour, every single minute to turn this economy around." He said interest groups he has battled "talk about me like a dog."

He also acknowledged that the past eight months of modest private-sector job growth hasn't been enough to bring down the unemployment rate. He said economic problems facing families today are "more serious than ever," and seemed to ask the audience in Milwaukee — and voters nationwide — for patience.

"Now here's the honest truth, the plain truth. There's no silver bullet, there's no quick fix to these problems," he said, adding that it will take time to "reverse the damage of a decade worth of policies" that caused the recession.

Administration officials said the transportation plan's initial $50 billion would be the beginning of a six-year program of transportation improvements, but they did not give an overall figure. The proposal has a longer-range focus than last year's economic stimulus bill, which was more targeted on immediate job creation.

The plan calls for rebuilding 150,000 miles of roads; building and maintaining 4,000 miles of rail lines and 150 miles of airport runways, and installing a new air navigation system to reduce travel times and delays.

.Obama also called for a permanent funding mechanism, an infrastructure bank, to focus on paying for national and regional infrastructure projects. Officials provided few details of how the bank would work.

Obama said the proposal would be fully paid for. In an earlier briefing for reporters, administration officials said Obama would pay for the program by asking lawmakers to close tax breaks for oil and gas companies and multinational corporations.

The infrastructure spending is part of a package of economic proposals to be announced this week by Obama, who is feeling heat from fellow Democrats and a jittery public to show that he is focused on pumping life into the economic recovery and shrinking an unemployment rate long stuck near 10 percent.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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I like the idea of spending money to update the rail system because rail freight and passenger service is much more efficient than using hiway trucks, buses, and planes.  As to high speed rail, it appears we could upgrade rail beds to handle speeds of 135 to 150 mph without having to make the changes needed to safely handle the 300 mph trains.

I think that a concerted effort should be made to electrify large portions of our railways and it could be done in a manner so that the rail system could handle both electric motive power as well as diesel power.

As to spending money on hiways, it may be needed but over time we need to reduce the need for bigger and better hiways by shifting more of the load of freight and passenger travel to the rail systems.  Rail systems pay taxes where public hiways consume huge amounts of taxes to keep them in good conditon.

As to improved runways, it may be needed but in the long run we need to replace more air travel with more rail travel.  With faster trains a trip of 300 to 500 miles could be done by rail in good enough time to compete with plane travel. From my experience the getting from and to the plane from the origin or final destination takes time and money and on a short hop one effectively loses much of the time advantage from air travel.  In this part of the country a major airport can be located from 30 to 50 miles from parts of the city or cities that it services and it takes time to travel to and from the cities, usually in a hired conveyance. Train travel could eliminate much of that time and expense of getting to and from the airort to a dowtown area of a city.

I do hope the effort can be financed without additonal borrowing.  Perhaps it can be funded with additonal user taxes such as more fuel tax or a tax on fares to ride a bus, train or plane.   

The beauty of these kinds of projects is that in the end the taxpayer has something substantial to show for, something that can last for decades if properly maintained.  These are not consumer oriented jobs because they result in additional capital improvements but the wages earned by the workers needed to do the projects could be spent as needed.   My point is this.  If we are to recover and are to maintain a healthy economy we need more than to make fluff and stuff, the usual consumer type of junk, much of which is made overseas anyway.  We need solid accomplishments that can be used to build on and to rely on for continued economic success.  In other words, capital spending rather  than frivolous spending. 

[IM2]

Frivolous spending like starting wars for no reason?

[johnhp]

In truth, you would also have to extend the rail network, at least the passenger network.  Currently, if i wanted to take a train to visit my hometown, i cannot.  The nearest passenger train does not go within 3 hours of my hometown.  If i wanted to visit my mother by train in North Georgia, I would either have to take the train east to Phildelphia and then go to Atlanta and then traven by car for a little over an hour or go to New Orleans and then back to Atlanta and travel for a little more than an hour.  If we want to, and I think we should, support mass trans for travel we have to do a lot of expansion.

[ivanm]

Frivolous spending like starting wars for no reason?

We either fight them over there or over here.  Ask the Israelis why Bush invaded Iraq.

[ivanm]

In truth, you would also have to extend the rail network, at least the passenger network.  Currently, if i wanted to take a train to visit my hometown, i cannot.  The nearest passenger train does not go within 3 hours of my hometown.  If i wanted to visit my mother by train in North Georgia, I would either have to take the train east to Phildelphia and then go to Atlanta and then traven by car for a little over an hour or go to New Orleans and then back to Atlanta and travel for a little more than an hour.  If we want to, and I think we should, support mass trans for travel we have to do a lot of expansion.

Good points.  I think that at first we should cover the most frequently traveled routes.  Low ridership to remote points may make a full fledged rail service unfeasible.   I think that the success of mass rail service in
England and in other parts of Europe is possible in part due to the high population density.  While reading a book on Patton's third army it was pointed out that many many little towns were recaptured in just a few days' time.  That tells me that the little burgs are heavily concentrated in eastern France and in western Germany along the industrial sectors.

Here in the mid section of the US the railroads have discontinued even freight service on the trunk lines and have even removed the tracks and depots in order to avoid further taxation.  I think that is a sad state because rail freight is much more efficient than truck freight and  the mountains of grain coming out of the breadbasket states invariably end up on a rail car headed east to the population centers for milling.

This may neve fly in the absence of a very critical fuel supply situation, but we can avoid a lot of travel by redistributing the many manyufacturing and food processing industries that serve our daily needs.  For example, a county of 20,000, which is about the size of the county in which I live, could be self sufficent in milk processing, flour producton, baking, and in various vegetables such as potatoes and onions.  We could also raise most of the apples, tomatoes, peppers, and other fruits that we use.

But no, down thru the years the industries have steadily centralized in the name of efficiency.  They were assuming a cheap supply of motor fuels, which isn't the case anymore.  So if we went from centralized production to distributed production we could have the same products at much less cost of motor fuels and could provide some badly needed jobs out here in the boonies.  Unemployment is not a big factor in the boonies but underemployment has always been a factor that has driven young people from the rural towns to the metro areas looking for better wages.  We take pride in our top quality school systems but once the kids graduate there is too little in the way of good jobs available locally, so off to the city they go. 

[johnhp]

We either fight them over there or over here. 

Absolutely ridiculous.

[johnhp]

Good points.  I think that at first we should cover the most frequently traveled routes.  Low ridership to remote points may make a full fledged rail service unfeasible.   I think that the success of mass rail service in

Actually, i think the best approach is to of course connect major hubs with major stops along the way.  The strangest thing to me is that i cannot get on a train in Chicago and travel directly to Atlanta.  These are two major American cities with at least 3 to 4 large areas between them (Southern Illinois; Paducah; Clarksville, Nashville and Chattanooga or Indianapolis, Louisville, Nashville and Chattanooga).  It is just bizarre.

[ivanm]

At present there is very little mass transit from one small town to another here in the sticks, and even less in the way of city mass transit.  The problem lies with low ridership and with the fact that
the business areas of the cities were not laid out for mass trasit.  People have been used to driving their personal cars to shop and the shopping areas are not concentrated enough to make a transit service feasible.

As an example, in Salina, Ks., which is about 50,000 people, the rail system runs along the northern part of the old town but the newer shopping centers are on the far southern edge of the city, some 5 miles away.  A lot of folks from the smaller towns go into Salina to shop each day and use their private vehicles because there is no mass transit available.  Even if they could go by train to Salina they would be faced with getting from the rail stop to the shopping centers some five miles away.  This could be done by using local shuttle buses but it takes a lot of ridership and tax dollars to get such a system moving again.  People prefer to drive their own cars, and so do I, but I will have to agree that using mass transit would  be less fuelish than going it alone in the family car.

We need a blend of private vehicle travel plus an effective mass transit system.  That way if a fuel crisis should develop the basic infrastructure would be in place for mass transit to carry the load and save the day for many many commuters. People need time to adjust to the mass transit routine and by putting it in place now and subsidizing it, which is often the case, folks could gain the needed experience to rely more on a transit service and less on their personal cars.

[johnhp]

Yes, that makes sense.  You would think that the shopping districts would promote that kind of thing.  Have you ever seen Amtrak's route map?  It goes around Tennessee and Kentucky except for the far west of each state.  Completely insane.

[Pepsi]

Its cheap and easy for the big box stores to clear cut somewhere in teh suburbs near the highways and pave a big parking lot.. so much cheaper than renovating something in the city.   

Boston is just an ideal city for living.   I have it made.. I live in a single family house with a yard and a nature preserve (hiking) directly behind my house.  Yet I can walk to a supermarket and like 7 pizza parlors and assortment of services in the mini town here.   And I ride my bicycle every day to the T (mass transit) station and take it a few stops to downtown Boston, known as the best walking city in the US besides NY.   Boston was designed before cars came and it helps.

[dagon]

We either fight them over there or over here.  Ask the Israelis why Bush invaded Iraq.

ivan, i think you're conflating iraq with iran.  simple mistake, if you don't know what you're talking about.

peace

[johnhp]

Its cheap and easy for the big box stores to clear cut somewhere in teh suburbs near the highways and pave a big parking lot.. so much cheaper than renovating something in the city.   

Boston is just an ideal city for living.   I have it made.. I live in a single family house with a yard and a nature preserve (hiking) directly behind my house.  Yet I can walk to a supermarket and like 7 pizza parlors and assortment of services in the mini town here.   And I ride my bicycle every day to the T (mass transit) station and take it a few stops to downtown Boston, known as the best walking city in the US besides NY.   Boston was designed before cars came and it helps.

i used to go to Fenway when i lived in NY.  Sox fan for a long time.  Long way to go for a ball game but the Fenway Frank more than made up for it.  New England roll...forget about it.

[ivanm]

ivan, i think you're conflating iraq with iran.  simple mistake, if you don't know what you're talking about.

peace

Apparently you are light on history. During Gulf I Saddam Hussein lobbed SCUDS at Israel and a few landed in Tel Aviv.  He was supposedly making an improved version that would be longer range and more accurate.  He had a bone to pick with the Israelis, as do a number of Arabic nations.

I think that in time we will become involved in the silly dispute between Israel and Iran, particularly if a war hawk is elected to the WH.

[ivanm]

In truth, you would also have to extend the rail network, at least the passenger network.  Currently, if i wanted to take a train to visit my hometown, i cannot.  The nearest passenger train does not go within 3 hours of my hometown.  If i wanted to visit my mother by train in North Georgia, I would either have to take the train east to Phildelphia and then go to Atlanta and then traven by car for a little over an hour or go to New Orleans and then back to Atlanta and travel for a little more than an hour.  If we want to, and I think we should, support mass trans for travel we have to do a lot of expansion.

A step in the right direction would be to reach the largest number of riders from a given area.  It may never be feasible to reach the remote hamlets with mass transit because of the low ridership.  Perhaps a bus service would be the best answer for these people as buses require much less investment than rail does.

Dallas is a prime example of being a real challenge to a successful mass transit system because the town is so spread out and the new business parks over the years have developed along the beltways that encircle the city.  Some folks drive as much as 30 miles one way to work.  Once again, the patronage to a given area is low which makes having a transit service unprofitable.  And Texans aren't about to give up driving their cars to work as it permits a degree of freedom you don't when you  ride the bus.  When I worked in the Dallas area it was common for a bunch of us to take off in cars for lunch that was many miles from the office. 

[johnhp]

A step in the right direction would be to reach the largest number of riders from a given area.  It may never be feasible to reach the remote hamlets with mass transit because of the low ridership.  Perhaps a bus service would be the best answer for these people as buses require much less investment than rail does.

Hamlets?  From Chicago to Atlanta are larger cities: Indianapolis (population: 807,000), Louisville (population: 720,000), Nashville (population: 626,000) and Chattanooga (population: 200,000).