Fixing Our Infrastructure

Discussion in 'Elections & Campaigns' started by RedStone7476, Jan 27, 2017.

  1. RedStone7476

    RedStone7476 Active Member

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    Trump says that he wants to fix our infrastructure.

    This is one of the few issues that I agree with Trump on, and I applaud him for it.

    However, it should be noted that Obama ALSO said that he wanted to fix our infrastructure.

    Why didn’t Obama do that?

    As you may recall, the Republicans in Congress refused to work with Obama on anything, because they had
    vowed to block everything that Obama tried to do.

    Bottom line: If the Republicans had put America first and worked with Obama, it is possible that we would NOW
    see improvements in our infrastructure, and we would NOW be reaping the benefits of those improvements.
    And it is possible that we would now be seeing progress on OTHER improvements.

    And think of all of the jobs that COULD have been, if the Republicans would’ve put America first.

    For all of you who voted for Trump because he said that he wanted to fix our infrastructure,
    I have the following questions:
    - Did you support Obama when he said that he wanted to fix our infrastructure?
    - Did you pressure the Republicans to work with Obama to fix our infrastructure?
    - And if not, why not?

    In my opinion, the Republicans should have been PUNISHED for not working with Obama to fix our
    infrastructure. But instead, they were REWARDED ... and they still control both houses of Congress.
    Go figure.
     
  2. TomFitz

    TomFitz Well-Known Member

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    We did get many improvements via the Stimulus Bill.

    Nonetheless, you are correct. Even the number that Obama originally proposed was far short of what the ASCE estimated would be needed.

    Worst still, the Republicans didn't want to spend even the relatively modest sum Obama proposed on actual work, but rather on largely ineffective minor tax cuts.

    Much of this could be solved in the short run by simply raising the Federal gas tax, which has been unchanged for 24 years. And increase of 10 cents (one tenth of a dollar) spread over five years would increase the amount of annual income to the Highway Users Trust Fund by 75%.

    And most people wouldn't notice it at all unless it was pointed out to them.

    But even a modest proposal such as this requires extraordinary courage in a political environment dominated by obstrutionism and empty pandering.
     
  3. Bondo

    Bondo Well-Known Member

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    Ayuh,.... Ya mean the trillion dollar bill for shovel ready jobs, in which a shovel was never lifted, before the trillion dollars was pizzed away,..??
     
  4. Hedgology

    Hedgology Well-Known Member

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    All I'm hearing from this thread is that the losers are losers and they keep losing because they didn't play politics the way they should have and the opposition party placed the game better than you.

    I don't know why you expect pity from anyone.
     
  5. Papastox

    Papastox Well-Known Member

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    And it looks as though the DEMOCRATS should be punished for not working with Trump. Obama was a failure in so many areas and pushing an agenda that only the Left could like----not regular Americans. Obama was rejected, so if the Dems try that on Congress, the Dems will be punished again. The silent majority is watching...
     
  6. APACHERAT

    APACHERAT Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    List them.

    It was TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) signed into law on Oct. 3rd, 2008 by President Bush not Sen. Obama.
    It was TARP that prevented the collapse of the worlds financial institutions.

    Obama's $787 billion dollar "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 " :roflol: Hundreds of billions of dollars down the crapper with nothing to show for it. "Cars for Clunkers" :roflol: Chrysler being forced by the Obama administration being sold to an Italian bicycle manufacture.

    Who benefited from Obama's $787 billion dollar stimulus ? Union's pension funds. Illegal aliens who had their rents paid for. Incompetent public service employees.

    The whole idea of the $787 billion dollar stimulus was to restart the economy. How did that work out ? Eight years later still no full recovery of the economy.

    There were no shovel ready jobs.

    Then you have the Fed (Federal Reserve) who propped up Wall Street and Obama's phony economy for eight years. Wall Street is not Main Street !!!

    As I predicted almost a year ago on this forum that the Fed would start raising interest rates as the Obama administration comes to an end.

    Was the Federal Reserve politicized by Obama just like every other branch of the federal government by the Obama administration (IRS, DOJ, CIA) ???

    Do you understand how much $787 billion dollars is ? You could build 100 Nimitz class aircraft carriers along with building the ship yards to build them. Do you know how many millions and millions of new jobs that would have created ? But what would the U.S. Navy do with 100 aircraft carriers ???

    Obama was given the money to rebuild the nations infrastructure and he flushed it down the crapper.
     
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  7. CourtJester

    CourtJester Well-Known Member

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    Yes $787 billion is about one fifth of the money wasted in the Iraq war. Or perhaps less depending on how you calculate the actual long term costs. And it didn't kill any Americans or foreign civilians.
     
  8. DOconTEX

    DOconTEX Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    A tiny, tiny bit of the "stimulus package" was actually spent on infrastructure. I read recently that some accounts still have unspent money in them from that bill. Most of the "stimulus" fund, passed with all Democrat votes, a few weeks after Obama took office, in a Congress that was totally Democrat controlled, went to prop up public employee unions and Teacher's unions. Then there were all the monies wasted on "green energy" boondoggles. Tens of Billions.

    Remember this?: [video=youtube;O55aRrvXtio]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O55aRrvXtio[/video]
     
  9. Steady Pie

    Steady Pie Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Tax cuts are always effective at stopping the use of the threat of imprisonment to steal people's property.
     
  10. Nordic Democrat

    Nordic Democrat Well-Known Member

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    We need massive spending on infrastructure. Obama tried this but was blocked by those favoring austerity. Trump will try this, but will most likely get blocked by his own party. We shall see.....
     
  11. shades

    shades Active Member

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    woa woa woa, lets not rewrite history here, Obama blew through nearly a trillion dollars that was earmarked for infrastructure shovel ready jobs. While he was so busy, for two years, cramming his Obamacare disaster down our throats his liberal cohorts around the country blew the money like drunken sailors on shore leave right beneath his nose.
    As his directive to governors across the country was to use the money to create jobs OR SAVE jobs. Boy they liked that last part. Here in Massachusetts Deval Patrick used all of his money to shore up his fiscal irresponsibility in everything from the MBTA union run pension funds to the failed liberal public sector industry and all in between claiming he would have to lay people off if he didnt. And across the nation the same was the norm as we watched them drain the piggy bank.

    A trillion dollars and no infrastructure to speak of. We have woken up to the flim flam known as liberal bureaucracy.
     
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  12. Taxpayer

    Taxpayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Not sure it needs to be fixed so much as it needs to be improved. The rest of world is moving forward, we have to as well. The republican party wasn't rewarded so much as indulged. Things came to a stand still because many things couldn't be improved by one party. Too many people insisted it was their way or no way. We got no way.

    So the other side stopped pushing as hard. Now it's time for the second side to try "their way," they are being indulged. If their plan (assuming there is one) works--great. If it doesn't, the pendulum will swing again and folks sitting on their butts will have less credibility if some shout "our way or no way."

    End of the day, I don't care whose plan ends up making some things better. I'd just like to see us make America more competitive. For half a century we had the number one economy in the world, but for three decades it's been slowing. In 2012 we fell to second place, we dropped to third in 2014. And we're still loosing ground. We got a lot of bad momentum. It's going to be hard to find a way to make America effective enough to be competitive and anyone who expects us to fight our way back to number one in less than a few decades isn't doing the math.

    We got a hard job ahead of us. It's going to be possible only if we start pulling together.




     
  13. scarlet witch

    scarlet witch Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It sounds fantastic until you look at what happened in Japan

    http://www.heritage.org/report/learning-japan-infrastructure-spending-wont-boost-the-economy

    and China's ghost cities

    "Enough empty floor space to cover Madrid": so why are China's ghost cities still unoccupied?
    http://www.citymetric.com/skylines/enough-empty-floor-space-cover-madrid-so-why-are-chinas-ghost-cities-still-unoccupied-1180

    http://www.news.com.au/finance/china-building-mega-cities-but-they-remain-empty-sparking-fears-of-housing-bubble-burst/news-story/c76fa7a3dcbcf38ca1fab4bac4e7bf21

    The lessons of huge infrastructure spending have already been learned
     
  14. shades

    shades Active Member

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    One little problem with your little history lesson here.
    It lacks fact.

    When Obama took office he had both houses of Congress.
    He also had "nearly" a trillion dollars at his disposal for infrastructure spending. Which he did nothing with.
    his directive to the states gobbling up the money was to use the money to creat jobs, or SAVE jobs.
    Many states used the money to shore up their own fiscal irresponsibility to date, claiming they otherwise would have had to lay people off, thereby SAVED jobs.

    You can tell "stories" that fit your narrative, but you can not rewrite history.
    Obama was a big fat failure in everything domestic and foreign. But he's gone, so you would do best to let him fade away rather than continue to tie your parties politics to his successes, because they don't exist.

    And blaming republicans is not going to work either, a little kettle black taking place as we speak on the obstructionism, so there goes that argument.

    Dems are cooked, done, finito for the next at least generation. So whining may be all you have at this time, I understand that.
     
  15. DennisTate

    DennisTate Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The primary reason why President Obama and his team did not tackle infrastructure
    was that they lacked the courage to tackle related issues such as......


    http://www.infowars.com/trump-calls-for-auditing-the-fed/


    Trump Calls For Auditing the Fed
     
  16. Pycckia

    Pycckia Well-Known Member

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    What exactly do you have in mind. The roads are not great but serviceable in the parts of the country I've
    visited. I don't here of any massive power blackouts. I guess that dam in CA is due for a refit.

    This is not something I am especially expert in, so help me out. What sort of massive infrastructure spending do you have in mind that we actually need?
     
  17. DennisTate

    DennisTate Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    President Donald J. Trump may well be the best we have ever seen at turning probable enemies into partial allies.

    I personally believe that he seriously did want Mr. Mitt Romney as Secretary of State but, Ms. Kelly Conway tested the waters for him and the negative reaction from his own strongest supporters was just too negative against Mitt..... .so he gave in to his supporters.

    But...... President Trump is very capable of seeing the Artistic Value, the potential educational, diplomatic and yes..... potential economic value in working with America's Green Party on at least some parts of infrastructure.

    Frankly, Kevin O'Leary could get the whole thing organized up here from Canada so that on the books it appears like an infusion of "foreign exchange?"


    http://www.politicalforum.com/econo...teerism-hour-dollar-alternative-currency.html

    Proposed Green Party Volunteerism Hour or Dollar alternative currency.
     
  18. shades

    shades Active Member

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    Trump posted a top 50 list with very specific projects,

    http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article128492164.html
    The infrastructure in this country is in constant need of repair, by the nature of the term infrastructure it is always constantly outdated, or in ill repair
    Obama chose to ignore it and allow resources to go elsewhere, so it is REALLY in need of repair and or addition now, this is a no brainer jobs creation bonanza
     
  19. DOconTEX

    DOconTEX Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    He wasn't blocked, he never tried. He spent the money on public employee unions and "green energy" boondoggles.
     
  20. Natty Bumpo

    Natty Bumpo Well-Known Member

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    It is true that hyper-partisans abstained from discharging the duties of governance for which they were collecting their paychecks from the public, but I doubt if the strict constipationalists in Congress will now defer to the self-proclaimed "King of Debt!"'s prodigal agenda and lavish the nation's wealth upon his various caprices.

    His wish list includes throwing other people's money at the Pentagon that is lousy with waste and inefficiency, constructing a largely-symbolic big, big wall, enacting a health insurance plan that is "something terrific!" and covers "everybody!" and promoting a "Big Government" take-over that nationalizes local law enforcement agencies to perform [its responsibilities which will include identifying, apprehending, incarcerating, and paying room and board for 11 million people for years.

    He's about to find out that the ranks of Republicans in Congress are not Trump® U patsies to be scammed, fleeced, and discarded like a used up trophy wife.
     
  21. Crawdadr

    Crawdadr Well-Known Member

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    I am for federal dollars going towards federal infrastructure but I am not for that money going towards local infrastructure. Kansas should pay for Kansas roads and California should pay for California roads. Only Infrastructure specifically serviced and used by the federal government should be paid for by said federal government.
     
  22. mamooth

    mamooth Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The Trump admin has already announced their infrastructure plan. They plan to turn the entire USA into a toll road.

    Elaine Chow, Transportation Secretary
    ---
    So, basically, we allow foreign inv—uh, we allow different kinds of money, private sector money to come into the United States—I’m not saying foreign—to come and fund, let’s say a bridge or a road or it can be any kind of infrastructure.
    ---

    Of course, the Chinese aren't going to build roads for us for free. They'll want to be paid back. Sean Hannity makes it clear how that works.

    ---
    If I'm hearing it properly, what you're saying is, for example, if a company were to rebuild a road, they might get their investment back by having a toll on that road
    ---



    The funny part? Liberals tend to be used to toll roads, while conservatives tend to think of them as the work of Satan, being they have the god-given right to drive on government-made toll-free roads at all times.
     
    Last edited: Mar 9, 2017
  23. Jimmy79

    Jimmy79 Banned

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    We need 3 things to fix our infrastructure.

    First, we need a 50 state and federal accounting of gas taxes and where that money is going. 5 minutes of research shows that those taxes, if spent correctly, would cover most of the infrastructure needs of the country and the states, I would guess that a 1-1.5 cents would probably be needed to cover any shortfall.

    Second, we need additional funding for DoE and state water/sewer/electrical corporations to modernize their systems. I believe a SPECIFIC amount should be added to each bill to cover this, which the feds providing any additional financing. Whether it be 1 cent per 100 gallons or $10 per month is up for debate, but it needs to be done.

    Third, we need accountability in the contracting process. Just like a contractor that works on your home, you expect them to stay to the budget and timeline they offer. Obviously if an unforseeable complication arises, then it can be addressed, but most of the work done now is being done behind schedule and above cost and that needs to change.
     

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