Infrastructure Bank: Obama’s Desperate Attempt to Win Midterm Democrat Votes; Stimulus Déjà Vu
The president’s pandering to public unions has backfired and now he wants to create an “infrastructure bank” which would be run by the government but would pool tax dollars with private investment.
The New York Times reports Obama Offers a Transit Plan to Create Jobs.
President Obama, looking to stimulate a sluggish economy and create jobs, called Monday for Congress to approve major upgrades to the nation’s roads, rail lines and runways — part of a six-year plan that would cost tens of billions of dollars and create a government-run bank to finance innovative transportation projects.Central to the plan is the president’s call for an “infrastructure bank,” which would be run by the government but would pool tax dollars with private investment, the White House says.
some leading proponents of such a bank — including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican of California; Gov. Ed Rendell, Democrat of Pennsylvania; and Michael R. Bloomberg, the independent mayor of New York — would like to see it finance a broader range of projects, including water and clean-energy projects. They say such a bank would spur innovation by allowing a panel of experts to approve projects on merit, rather than having lawmakers simply steer transportation money back home.
“It will change the way Washington spends your tax dollars,” Mr. Obama said here, “reforming the haphazard and patchwork way we fund and maintain our infrastructure to focus less on wasteful earmarks and outdated formulas, and more on competition and innovation that gives us the best bang for the buck.”
Mish Comment: What a bunch of crock. If the president was genuinely interested in keeping costs down he would ask Democrats to scrap Davis Bacon and collective bargaining.
The White House did not offer a price tag for the full measure or say how many jobs it would create. If Congress simply reauthorized the expired transportation bill and accounted for inflation, the new measure would cost about $350 billion over the next six years. But Mr. Obama wants to “frontload” the new bill with an additional $50 billion in initial investment to generate jobs, and vowed it would be “fully paid for.” The White House is proposing to offset the $50 billion by eliminating tax breaks and subsidies for the oil and gas industry.
Mish Comment: If the bill was fully paid for the the President ought to have the balls to say how. In simple terms he is either disingenuous or a blatant liar. Is there not even $50 billion in military spending he could cut? Nothing?
After months of campaigning on the theme that the president’s $787 billion stimulus package was wasteful, Republicans sought Monday to tag the new plan with the stimulus label. The Republican National Committee called it “stimulus déjà vu,” and Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House Republican whip, characterized it as “yet another government stimulus effortPages: 1 2
Tags: arnold schwarzenegger, ed rendell, gov ed rendell, Infrastructure, president, tax
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