To Jolt Economy, Obama and Congress Eye Billions in Infrastructure Spending
Obama transition officials have made it clear to Horsley and others that pork, however, is a no-no. As one Capitol Hill Democrat puts it, "We need something that's stimulative and that produces jobs right now and leaves us with a stronger economy down the road. We're not building 'Bridges to Nowhere.' "
Watchdogs are skeptical. "We're staring down the barrel of a trillion-dollar deficit in the current fiscal year," says Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense, who questions the wisdom of bailing out states by supersizing the national debt. It's also unclear whether GOP lawmakers will sign on. "Folks are hurting," says the top House Republican, Ohio's John Boehner. "But the American people know that more Washington spending isn't the answer." Whether he hops on board the train or not, federal dollars—and carloads of them—are about to leave the station.
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Reader Comments
Cutler's comment sounds good...
Cutler's custom modular housing sounds good. A tax incentive would help. My lifetime project about employment is to reduce population. That way, we break the historic pattern of "too many people for too few jobs." I want Congress to invest taxes in free sex-education, free contraception, free voluntary sterilization and free abortion. There are too many consumers in every nation, and too many paupers who collect foreign aid from us at tax expense. But Ban-Abortion churches want to force women to continue producing generations of people who take the place of tithers who die or lose faith. Every nation can benefit from having nicely-designed modular houses, made in a thrifty way, easily transported and put in place. Best wishes to Mr. Cutler, back East.
Stimulus
We are a small architectural firm in Wilton CT seeking government work. We have a unigue specialty in designing custom modular built housing. This would be a perfect fit for military or embesy housing. For over 6 months we have marketed to government agentcies and submitted RFPs. With little or no feedback. The few answers we have gotten back from government contract officers are the stimulus money has been not released yet. We have invested 100's of hours and over 100,000 dollars to get government work in addition to employing service providers to help. As of yet NOTHING!
Is there simply too many applicants? or do you need special connections? The government has so called systems in place such as FAR to keep oppourtunities fair for all small business. Does this really work in practice? We knew this was not going to be easy but. We now question this approach to getting business, perhaps targeted tax incentives would do much better to help the economy than slogging through this bidding process. We are running out of time and money with seeking goverment oppourtunities, I will soon have to lay off the balance of my staff and shut down.
It is a shame that the skill sets developed will go to waste.
Obama's New New Deal, will be Old, Old
After the environmental impact studies that the far left environmentalist demand, the funds "might" jolt the economy in 3 - 5 years. Then add to the fact that the quoted projects will end up being 3-4 times the original quoted cost, just look at the visitor center in DC.
That's going to do a lot of good for the economy.
"Change We Can Believe In"
BTW, the Stock Market is not the Economy, it seems that most American’s think they are one in the same.
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