Roll Over Roosevelt, Tell Eisenhower the News

The idea that appropriating new money for highways will create new jobs quickly is laughable. The National Environmental Protection Act ensures that all new government construction projects take years to start and will spend years in court. In addition, construction has changed from being labor intensive in teh 1930's to capital intensive today. Spending money on roads will give poltical power to local governments and make unionized construction workers happy. It will create few new jobs, will require the borrwing of billions from overseas investors, and will create higher taxes in the long run.

If politicians wanted to create jobs, they would start enforcing existing labor and immigration laws. If the 20 million illegal aliens were forced out of the U.S., it would create jobs to force them out, cause wages to increase, and open jobs for poor, American born minorities.

However, I dbout that the Democrats will give up on 20 million future automatic Democratic voters and will want to lower the employment of social workers when 20 million disfunctional humans are forced out of th e U.S.

Pete,

What if the methodology for delivering broadband was changed radically? Right now there is no such thing as real competition in broadband. Many places in the country have no access and others are limited to only one provider. We just recently went up to having two choices. Big deal. Both have major flaws in technology, customer service and pricing. What if the infrastructure of building the basic delivery systems went into a non-profit pool agency and in these tough economic times the government would consult with the broadband companies on how to implement this and how the government could best help the cable companies use this concept to help expand availability. In return they would have to let more competition spring up because of open access to the infrastructure. The increased number of companies would also reduce how much the existing ones would have to pay into the pool to maintain and expand the infrastructure. The providers would then be worrying about and competing on the basis of things like the technology at the endpoints, programming and customer service. If it worked out the pool agency could enable fiber to the home/office in areas where it is already close and roll out WiMax or a similar technology in lower population density areas like many rural areas.

sd apparently doesn't understand the difference between repairs and new construction. He also apparently doesn't grasp how many projects on roads, bridges, water systems and sewers are just sitting there, already planned out and just waiting for funds. There are many billions of dollars worth of those kind of projects across the country.

It always comes back to demographics and immigration for SD.

But what's funny is that he always assumes that, for instance, hispanics will never vote for a Republican. That tells you a lot right there. (First, that he's never been to Miami or south Texas).

It's really just an excuse. It must be a deficiency on their part, not on the GOP's part.

Jim

Look up information on the intercounty connector in Maryland. It took them fifteen years of planning to get it to happen and once the money was appropriate, it never would have happened except that Maryland slipped up and elected a Republican governor who pushed the start through.

REpair will not add any addtional jobs but just keep the current set of overpriced 8a contractors in contracts. Also, if anything has changed in the underlaying assumptions for the EIS, the a revision will be required. And last, when projects start up for real, new lawsuits also start up.

If you look at the Wilson Bridge in DC, it was a replacement for an existing bridge, took years of environmental studies and lawsuits over contracts and employed few people. Talk about instracture is just pork barrel payoffs to big city mayors to reward above market rate contracts to unionized, government work only contruction firms.

Dave, There is no way that the more conservative party can appeal to an ethnic group that is overwhelmingly poor when the more liberal party panders to them. Also, South Texas is the most DEmocratic part of Texas. A study of counties with major hispanic populations in Texas showed that Hispanics is Texas are very loyal Democratic voters and the only reason Texas is a Red STate is the overwhelming support Republicans get from whites in TExas. I guess the whites in TExas understand the real impacts of open borders and unlimited immigration more tha a Chicago based community activist who sends his children to elite, all white private schools.

SD,

You are completely wrong about repairs not adding additional jobs. Lots of repair work has been put on indefinite hold because of shortfalls in municipal, county and state budgets. Getting those projects going for short term benefits along with other things that were in preliminary planning stages because there was no rush because of lack of funding would provide jobs for the employees of those contractors, whatever you think of them as well as their suppliers and put money into the economy because of the spending of all those people who would otherwise be out of work.

Jim,

I see you are a supporter of trickle down socialism. Let the government spend money it does not have and the money will trickle down to others. Of course, a large portion of the money will be spent on consumer goods manufactured in China limits the impact of trickle down socialism. Also, since so many of the employees will be illegal aliens, it will employ few new people.

The big dig in Boston costs billions and employed a maximum of 5,000 people. The wilson bridge costs billions and employed a few hundred construction workers. Construction is capital intensive and does not require people with shovels.

Broadband and medical records? Broadband, well, Pete, that's your deal -- you already know that people in glitzy buildings in DC (or in the nation's conceited-Communist monument to government, Empire State Plaza in Albany) don't know better than the people in industry. (That's the irony, as I've said before, about regulation -- those in the industry know the industry better than anyone else.)

Medical records? Phffft. It's just incrementalism in health care in the name of something else (economic recovery).

There will be no magic transformation. Repairing or (likely) replacing deficient bridges (many highways are substandard and need to be enlarged, so replacement makes more sense) is not as likely to be opposed. It means a lot of new beam and cable-stayed bridges all over this land, particularly where there are structurally deficient bridges.


http://www.bts.gov/programs/geographic_informat...


Highway enlargement and improvement? Sensible, certainly, in place of lib-dream transit and other projects. (Will money be dumped on New York metro's transit system and Transit Authority, misusing such construction funds for operating expenses?) California needs some new projects, I know, has need them for ages (Southern Crossing in the Bay Area; at least two all-new 30-plus mile multi-lane freeways in LA metro to complete the gridwork, and so on). CA's governmenor claims he has shovels ready to go into the ground. Let's see him prove it. Not a year from now or whatever he also admitted to, but starting very shortly next year if he gets the money. Same for other parties.


"how many projects on roads, bridges, water systems and sewers are just sitting there, already planned out and just waiting for funds"

Although there currently is a challenge, obviously, also obviously, for ages the states and localities should have already arranged the financing for these, which often do not benefit the "community at large" or the "nation" as a whole. This is one sad consequence of the New Deal and the term "New Deal" is tainted and a better choice for a name would have been a ["new"] "Marshall Plan." (It would conceivably include demolition and removal of what buildings were not instead refurbished or restored in numerous metro areas, particularly failed older central-city Blue Nation areas.* St. Louis schools and other buildings, in the city itself, to this day reportedly still lack air conditioning, for example.)

* I'm surprised ACORN hasn't been in the news yet demanding construction of new low-income "affordable" housing and public housing.

Highway projects ought to include stupid backward-Eastern toll booth demolition and removal on all Interstate highways. There should never, never, never be any obstructions whatsoever of any kind on any Interstate highway. THIS IS NOT PRE-WORLD WAR II.

"the critical difference between broadband availability (can I get it?) and adoption (will I pay for it?)"

Destruction of the difference: _make_ people adopt it.