Bush: "Highways just don't happen...people have got to show up"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

Bush: Highway Bill Will Spur the Economy

By NEDRA PICKLER Associated Press Writer

http://www.salon.com/wire/ap/archive.html?wire=D8BTAEGG1.html

August 10,2005 | MONTGOMERY, Ill. -- President Bush opened the gates Wednesday for spending a whopping $286.4 billion on roads and bridges, rail and bus facilities, bike paths and recreational trails, saying the projects from coast to coast would spur the economy and save lives.

Critics said the 1,000-page transportation bill was weighed down with pet projects to benefit nearly every member of Congress. The bill's price tag over six years was $30 billion more than Bush had recommended, but he said he was proud to sign it.

"Highways just don't happen," Bush said. "People have got to show up and do the work to refit a highway or build a bridge, and they need new equipment to do so. So the bill I'm signing is going to help give hundreds of thousands of Americans good-paying jobs."

To make his point, Bush signed the measure at a suburban Chicago Caterpillar Inc. plant in the home district of House Speaker Dennis Hastert. The Republican leader oversaw nearly two years of negotiations on Capitol Hill to get a slimmed-down version that Bush would accept.

[Salviati]

1. Maybe he can tell that to the republican fuckwits here in washington...

who can't maintain their own freaking infrastructure...

:mad: fucking tim eyman and his ilk...

[Fovea]

2. What kind of economics is this boys and girls?

Keynesian!
Loud and Proud, this is the triumph of FDR and the new deal!

[madrchsod]

4. you must have passed economics 101

200 billion and counting could really help this country create jobs..

[Fovea]

6. What would have made me a lot happier though

is if more of it wound up going into light rail, and what they used to call interurban rail systems.

We are going to need to increase our rail capacity to carry most of that 70% of freight carried by trucks, and a lot of folks now driving SUV's will be needing affordable transport in the next year.

But yeah, jobs are badly needed in the ** economy, investor class miracle that it is.

[Mr Rabble]

3. How can he possibly be this stupid?

Just wait until they announce that the $30bn over budget wont be included in the deficit.

[tabasco]

5. Deficits, shmeficits !!

Our grandchildren are paying for this pork barrell bill.

[Fovea]

7. But it is small change compared to what Iraq is gonna cost

I think we do need to deficit spend, but on domestic rebuilding of a new infrastructure that can create a sustainable economy in the face of oil supply/price challenges, as well as climate change.

These things are going to have a massive effect on America's economy, and if we do not start adapting now, we will suffer far more later.
Our grand children will suffer unimaginably if we do not.

We need to get our asses back home, and rebuild America's industrial economy around oil and energy efficiency, more than profit.
That is job #1. Not trying to rob the oil pusher for our big smack habit.