Posted on 12/26/2008 7:08:31 AM PST by St. Louis Conservative
President-elect Obama's transition team is promising that its $700 billion, or $850 billion, or $1 trillion, or whatever it now is "stimulus" won't include pork-barrel spending. They must not have talked to the nation's mayors, who recently responded to Mr. Obama's request to compile their priority list of "shovel-ready" projects.
By all accounts, the $73 billion wish list may be the largest collection of parochial spending projects in American history. Strolling through the 800 pages, we found such beauties as: $1 million to upgrade the Los Angeles County Convention Center elevated "catwalk" for cameras and lighting; $350,000 for an Albuquerque, N.M., fitness center; $94 million for a parking garage at the Orange Bowl in Miami; $4.5 million for Gretna, Florida, to bottle water with recyclable bottles; a $35 million music hall of fame in Florissant, Missouri, and $3.1 million for a swimming pool in Tulsa.
Oh, and desperate Santa Barbara, Calif., respectfully requests $80,000 for a tennis facility; Savannah, Georgia, would like to build a children's museum; Ventura, Calif., wants $6 million to renovate the beach at Surfers Point, and Durham, N.C., home of the Durham Bulls, wants to construct the first Minor League Baseball Hall of Fame. Dayton, Ohio, wants $1.5 million to reduce prostitution with education programs, and Ponce, Puerto Rico wants $5.7 million to improve its cruise ship terminal (which will create all of 60 jobs). We could go on.
No doubt some of these proposals would enhance urban life, but then why can't the cities build them with their own money? Perhaps because the projects don't really measure up against more urgent local priorities. But when the federal taxpayer does the financing, everything suddenly becomes affordable.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Likewise, Minority Contractors will be at the forefront of the jobs for sure, too.
All in the Plan for this socialist Kenyan-born bastard who is invading our homeland capitol.
Yup. Union labor, and the environmentalist wackos will have veto power over anything they don’t like.
We don’t need more roads or bridges if we can afford to power our cars.
Infrastucture projects should be for energy producing projects like nuclear power plants. And limited to road construction where current conjestion is so bad that additional roads would reduce fuel consumption.
CUT SPENDING, CUT TAXES, and every time Congress gives itself a raise the taxpayers get the same percentage in a tax cut.
Sounds fair to me!!
Oy, it's going to be the '90's from Hell.
Not just veto power but also the power to force it "green" which, of course, will immediately double the cost of the project and triple the maintenance costs.
...and what taxpayer at what time? Obama needs to hold off taxes until all the spending is enacted. This was Clinton's dream in 1992 exactly 16 years ago and deficit mania killed it with Dole in Senate, early 1993. But democrats have GWB/republicans making all the precedents for borrowing and spending endlessly.
BINGO!!!
Marxists are trained to be deceitful.
The “Big Dig” in Boston will pale in comparison to the waste and corruption on this boondoggle.....
Or projects with safety in mind. There's a bridge to be partially funded with federal dollars on the drawing board here specifically for I-70 over the Mississippi that we've needed for decades and it's just as much a safety issue as fuel consumption. I think the mileage savings is about three, but getting 70 off that bridge is going to save a lot more in repairs as people who don't know how it all is set up get creamed trying to avoid the exit only lanes. That and it will make commutes easier for a lot of people.
If the states do these projects, they must still balance their budgets. If the Feds do them, they can deficit-spend with newly-printed dollars.
“and the environmentalist wackos will have veto power over anything they don’t like.”
Then relax, because if that really becomes the case, I predict 2/3 of this stuff will never get off the drawing boards.
However, I sense there could be an “environmentalist smackdown” coming - from no less than the Obama administration itself. You don’t think they’re going to let the Greens stand in the way of their pork distribution, eh?
But not to worry. They’ll only cut environmentalism out when doing so is for a liberal cause. They’ll work to close down all the coal mines and power plants, for sure!
- John
What country will be supplying the steel?
Awesome...Lets create a bunch of temporarys job for a bunch of illegal aliens.
How about we build factories/train a work force here so we don’t continue to do ship jobs to China.
But like others, I fear this will be a boon for Minority Owned Businesses and Unions.
White male owned, non-union construction crews will have to settle for the "trickle-down" effect:)
And there WILL be trickle down.
Perhaps the Dem's will FIRST grant amnesty to all illegals, and for those who voted for Osama, they go to the head of the line for the construction jobs, which they've already gotten years of experience on working here while illegally in this country for the past xxx years. ACORN is providing a workforce list, too, so they know who they can use on the jobs.
Along with the projects will be a mandatory "living wage" clause, developed by the UAW and SEIU.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.