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You won't. It was a road extension that was being built in my city due to the housing boom.
My town went from 7K to 52K in a less then 10 years. We used to have one road out of town to Austin and that road could not handle the flow. We had already been driving with construction and detours for 2 years BEFORE the stimulus bill came long but the signs showed up anyway
Not one state gave back that "free money". I don't know why Texas is constantly being singled out here as other states were in worse budget shape. Texas had a rainy day fund to begin with and we didn't have any RE fallout or mortgage crisis because of the way HELOCs are set up in our state. Texas had a mortgage crisis in the 80's and had rules in place to not let it happen again.
Seems those rules worked.
Because Texas has the conservative governor and legislatures talking about "seccession" at the same time they are boosting about economic growth while simultaneously taking money from the Fed govt to plug in budget deficits.
The same Texas that has to call 2 special sessions to roll back abortion rights and then another to address the transportation bill.
The same Texas who is bursting at the seams with people and growth, but no roads, schools, reservoirs, mass transit, etc. to show for it.
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Easily half of that stimulus was a silent state bailout.
Recall that many states were in trouble and going to have to make some pretty drastic cuts back then.
Exactly. So it really wasn't much of a stimulus, and stimulus wouldn't by the right word to call this. It was a bandaid to fix our state's budget problems from preventing more jobs from being loss and more services from being cut.
That's why we should have another bill (call it whatever you want) that addresses the long term infrastructure. A simple fix would be to adjust the gas tax inflation..... but we know how y'all feel about raising taxes.....
At some point Americans are going to realize that the fed is NOT responsible for their local problems.
Local infrastructure is a local responsibility.
Like I said, if your local politicians did NOT take the responsibility of maintaining their OWN infrastructure, don"t ask the rest of US to bail them out.
The locals don't have the money...... so you'd rather cut off your nose to spite your face? And FYI, the Federal Govt has over a century's worth of history making infrastructure investments so please spare me your nonsense.
It will always need fixing, by nature, they crumble and always need repaired.. So we should just spend trillions of dollars a year in order to keep urbanlife happy.
Of course not..... we should maintain our infrastructure because it is literally what keeps America moving, it's citizens and it's goods. We have neglected our infrastructure not just in maintenance but keeping up with our population so it would be a very wise investment while interest rates are still low.
Barack does not know which end of the shovel is the working end. He is not an authority on jobs or work.
He thought it was funny when he made the statement "Aren't as shovel ready as we thought". Shows his
contempt for the American people. I think he should take the shovel and stuff it as far up his as....
Of course not..... we should maintain our infrastructure because it is literally what keeps America moving, it's citizens and it's goods. We have neglected our infrastructure not just in maintenance but keeping up with our population so it would be a very wise investment while interest rates are still low.
Why borrow? from what I understand Obama wants to spend 50 billion I bet if he tried he could propose cuts and find some wasteful spending to pay for it. I would back such a plan even if it included military cuts.
Why borrow? from what I understand Obama wants to spend 50 billion I bet if he tried he could propose cuts and find some wasteful spending to pay for it. I would back such a plan even if it included military cuts.
Certainly. We also need to reform SS and hopefully Obamacare will at least put a bandaid over health care costs. But I think our military would be a great starting point:
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The estimated cost for a fleet of 2,443 F-35 fighters has climbed to $395.7 billion, a 70 percent increase since 2001. Pentagon officials have prodded Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed, the world’s largest defense contractor, and its subcontractors to improve performance and reduce costs
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“We have a $2.5 billion cost overrun on an aircraft carrier,” fumed the inimitable Sen. John McCain. The Navy’s next-generation nuclear carrier, the CVN-78 Gerald R. Ford under construction at Huntingon-Ingalls’ Newport News shipyard in Virginia, is now estimated to cost almost $13 billion. “Newport News is the only game in town, nobody else builds aircraft carriers,” a visibly irate McCain continued, so how do you force them to cut costs when there’s no competition? “What can we do, what can we do, to prevent this kind of cost overrun which… is unacceptable when we have a terribly damaged economy?” he said.
We need to keep a strong military and homeland security but what we are doing amounts to a nice chunk of our GDP going to just security, a chunk that dwarfs the next country. A small fraction of that could be diverted towards buildings roads, highways, waste water treatment plants, reservoirs, pipelines, powerlines, commuter rail, freight rail, etc. Will there be waste in infrastructure? Absolutely, but waste occurs everywhere and we could probably use more modern infrastructure over being the undisputed world sheriff.
Lastly, a probably better solution (although tougher) would be states and municipalities paying for most of these improvements themselves if we could find a grand bargain for pensions and such that we simply can't afford to pay or honor fully going forward. That's the main issue holding back state and local budgets.
At some point Americans are going to realize that the fed is NOT responsible for their local problems.
Local infrastructure is a local responsibility.
Like I said, if your local politicians did NOT take the responsibility of maintaining their OWN infrastructure, don"t ask the rest of US to bail them out.
Well I am sorry you don't understand the importance of our infrastructure is to the economy.
Why borrow? from what I understand Obama wants to spend 50 billion I bet if he tried he could propose cuts and find some wasteful spending to pay for it. I would back such a plan even if it included military cuts.
Bring all the military home. He would then have tons of freed up money. This is something that those who voted for him claim they wanted him to do but now it seems they have forgot all about that.
If you want money for infrastructure demand that Obama take actions to that end. The other side rightfully so no longer trusts him with their money.
Because Texas has the conservative governor and legislatures talking about "seccession" at the same time they are boosting about economic growth while simultaneously taking money from the Fed govt to plug in budget deficits.
The same Texas that has to call 2 special sessions to roll back abortion rights and then another to address the transportation bill.
The same Texas who is bursting at the seams with people and growth, but no roads, schools, reservoirs, mass transit, etc. to show for it.
Exactly. So it really wasn't much of a stimulus, and stimulus wouldn't by the right word to call this. It was a bandaid to fix our state's budget problems from preventing more jobs from being loss and more services from being cut.
That's why we should have another bill (call it whatever you want) that addresses the long term infrastructure. A simple fix would be to adjust the gas tax inflation..... but we know how y'all feel about raising taxes.....
I'm not disagreeing with you. Infrastructure is long term..years.
But that stimulus had a 6 month time period in which it had to be spent.
That's why you ended up with turtle paths and bike paths and hike and bike trails and lots of repaving.
The devil is in the details.
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