Monday, October 10, 2011
The Bridge to the Bridge of the Future
Most fair-minded people know that, if in fact the U.S. is EVER going to be a healthy and competitive player again, we are going to HAVE TO upgrade our infrastructure. We're going to have to a) repair our roads, schools, and bridges, b) update our power-grid, and c) markedly improve our technological communications..............................................................................................The only problem here is that a lot of these very same individuals are also apprehensive about such expenditures. They see such things as the "big dig", the "bridge to nowhere", all of those West Virginia boondoggles and they legitimately wonder, how can we be sure that the tax money be spent appropriately?...............................................................................................Well, guess what, folks, it appears that at least two D.C politicians were actually listening to both of these concerns. Democrat, John Kerry, and Republican, Kay Bailey Hutchinson, have introduced a bill into the Senate which establishes a joint partnership (between the public and private sectors) infrastructure bank that supposedly would a) help to repair the nation's infrastructure and b) do it in a manner that wouldn't allow any future bridges to nowhere from ever getting funded..................................................................................................Now, have they introduced an absolutely foolproof system here? I don't know. I haven't read it. Probably not, would be my ultimate guess. But at least we have ONE example here of a Republican and a Democrat actually trying to improve the country and doing it in a way that apparently won't bankrupt us. What do you say that we possibly run with it, folks?
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3 comments:
An instant easy and painless increase of money for infrastructure projects happens if we repeal Davis-bacon and prevailing wage.
More anti-worker and anti-middle class sentiment from dmarks. I don't know how he can keep denying he's OPPOSED to paying fair wages.
We cannot fix our infrastructure. True, that would immediately create domestic the jobs, the very thing we claim is needed to get the economy going, and those earning the wages would immediately spend them back into the economy, yes, but we can't do it and here is why:
Instead, we need to give tax cuts to the rich so jobs will trickle down. I know you think the Koch Brothers will not hire more people and may either put those funds in their overflowing mattresses or spend it Europe, but there is a chance that some of it may trickle down to the lower income tax payers, and they may hire someone with a part of it. That is much better than the certainty that the funds will trickle down if we hire them directly, but in that case, we get fixed infrastructure also, and we need to focus on the economy, not on the nation that allows economic activity to happen. We can transport goods without bridges, just not as efficiently. We need more vehicles and more kinds of vehicles, boats, planes, cars.
Hiring people directly is big government spending. Tax cutting is not spending, so long as we cut the taxes of people who are rich, and therefore not likely to spend more than they are already spending. Now if we cut the taxes of lower income people, we know they will spend, putting the money back into the economy, but that is just not the point. We need the effect to trickle down, not just happen and happen 100% of the time.
If we can have wealth trickle down slowly and uncertainly to only a very small portion of the little people, then everyone will have a bigger piece of the overall pie. The rich people will make sure of that. It's what they do.
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