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“We will create millions of jobs by making the single largest new investment in our national infrastructure since the creation of the federal highway system in the 1950s,” - Barack Obama (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/us/politics/07radio.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&ref=us)

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/506/obama.jpgPeter Baker and John M Broder - New York Times - Dec. 06, 2008

Honeymoon ending: rhetoric to policy -- Ed

President-elect Barack Obama (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/index.html?inline=nyt-per) promised Saturday to create the largest public works construction program since the inception of the interstate highway system a half century ago as he seeks to put together a plan to resuscitate the reeling economy.

With jobs evaporating and the recession deepening, Mr. Obama began highlighting elements of the economic recovery program he is trying to fashion with Congressional leaders in hopes of being able to enact it shortly after being sworn in on Jan. 20. His address on Saturday followed the report on Friday indicating that the country lost 533,000 jobs in November alone, bringing the total number of jobs lost over the past year to nearly 2 million....http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/us/politics/07radio.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&ref=us

Its a good thing - Americans working on (hopefully needed) American infrastructure...

I agree with the work to reduce energy use (waste) in govt buildings and schools. Also hope there is effort to staff up PV installation crews as they will be short of certified installers and installation costs are about 1/2 total installed solar costs (with balance the PV modules themselves).

I sometimes wonder if Obama thinks money grows on trees.

“If more money is spent on infrastructure, more workers will be employed in that sector,” Mr. Viard added. “In the long run, however, an increase in infrastructure spending requires a reduction in public or private spending for other goods and services. As a result, fewer workers are employed in other sectors of the economy.”

Well, I don't know if that's a solution that's going to work, but it beats all of Bush's ideas. The Bush Doctrine for eight years has been "It's good for middle class Americans to lose their jobs so that CEOs can send labor to China".

Well, I don't know if that's a solution that's going to work, but it beats all of Bush's ideas. The Bush Doctrine for eight years has been "It's good for middle class Americans to lose their jobs so that CEOs can send labor to China".

I guess the Bush Doctrine not only applies to foreign policy in general or war in particular, but to anything and everything the man did. Good grief. No wonder Palin couldn't answer such a cynically crafted gotcha question.

Is there any solid evidence that these big projects and their enormous cost over-runs help the economy? Sure, it puts people to work, but is it efficient? Throwing money at the big three puts people to work, but it doesn't appear to be an efficient use of money. They have wasted so much already (like many big-government programs have), where is the evidence that the bid three will all of a sudden start to manage money well? The evidence does not exist.

Throwing money at public schools sounds great; who can be against it after all? Only a neanderthal. The devil is in the detail that money spent on schools does not equal reform. Reform equals reform. If money meant reform, Washington DC would have the best schools in the nation, not nearly the worst.

When there is no central organization REGULATING the usage of federal funds, spending with no actual requirement for reform goes out of hand.

It's near impossible to tell if a program will work if it is not tried. Is the man supposed to just sit and let things be, or should he continue what Bush has, or should he do something that has not been done before (he seems to have done pretty good in the latter).

If you cannot put forth a proposition that has the slightest chance of working, it is not suggested you completely disagree or do so in any manner whatsoever. After all, skepticism about our country's ability to rebound will not lead us to triumph.

I'm sure quite a few of you here are smart fellows and know a thing or two, so here's something to think about. We all know physical limitations are closely related to mental limitations. If you go into a test an put forth the effort of someone with the mindset of failure, failure will prevail. Set your mind to something, stick to it and do it regardless of negative outside influences that seek the demise of your progress.

Detroit is not able to manage money, that is obvious, however, they were not blindsided by the current issue they face. We all already know that. The analogy was used before where detroit is like a kid on crack. You the parent want the kid, but you want the kid healthy. This is true, Now that someone is willing to oversee detroit and point them in the right direction, what are the chances that they will KNOWINGLY screw themselves over? This just wouldnt make any sense to bite the hand that feeds you.

Back to the main topic: We have a problem (if that isnt very obvious). The problem is that our unemployment rate is going up. This puts a large tax burden on the rest of the working population and a strain on the federal budget. If we can increase our productivity, that effectively injects activity in the economy. People get paid, and money gets spent. We really have nothing to lose, but only to gain from the unemployed getting out of their sore predicament.

I sometimes wonder if Obama thinks money grows on trees.

“If more money is spent on infrastructure, more workers will be employed in that sector,” Mr. Viard added. “In the long run, however, an increase in infrastructure spending requires a reduction in public or private spending for other goods and services. As a result, fewer workers are employed in other sectors of the economy.”

I'm sure he knows money doesn't grow on trees, as a matter of fact, he knows they get printed, alas, without trees there wouldn't be any wood from which that special paper gets harvested.

Even though, Mr. Viard is right, doesn't mean the president-elect is going after fool's gold.
This is a short sighted statement. There are billions being spent on programs that are of no benefit fiscal or technological. THOSE PROGRAMS WILL BE CUT. I repeat, THOSE PROGRAMS WILL BE CUT.

Instead of being skeptical at first, without knowing the full details of the plan, it is unwise and as a matter of opinion, FOOLISH, to thrash it down when everything we know has not worked nor has it even surfaced. The mind is a terrible thing to waste. Use it.

PS: Save three spots on the road gang for the clowns who flew in on corporate jets. I understand they are now available at a bit of a discount --- think it was $1 per year (you might be able to bargain them down a bit).

A momentary tangent: suppose you are one of the drivers along with Wayne, Justin, Jennifer across the 48-states FE run....you miss a turn but it's caught almost immediately...maybe extra distance traveled is three miles - ten extra minutes. Just suppose two hours goes by (we know it would not happen, but just pretend)....at least 100 miles to make up and probably on the road another day.

This is Detroit - making course corrections at 11:59pm. In the 1990's they could have used the technology from Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partnership_for_a_New_Generation_of_Vehicles) and applied on the Tarsus, Oldsmobile...you know where I'm going. They had years to fix themselves on their own.

We have all kinds of opinions on this, but I think most of us can agree Detroit could have fixed themselves if they had wanted to.

I'm one of the dumbasses who will have to play a role in more road and bridge work.

I'm not terribly interested. We've lost engineers year after year, to the point we can't cover the work and have to hire consultants.

I haven't had a summer vacation in years, and the only ones I've had have been one week in duration.

I'm more interested in retiring than having a bunch more work put on me. As it is, one guy just left, and my workload went up 50 percent. The boss won't allow overtime, of course.

It's nice to be needed, but I'm thinking I've got three more construction seasons, and I'm out of there. That's fairly typical: most states have very few people around who know how to build roads and bridges. They are retiring in droves.

Harry

I'm one of the dumbasses who will have to play a role in more road and bridge work......

It's nice to be needed, but I'm thinking I've got three more construction seasons, and I'm out of there. That's fairly typical: most states have very few people around who know how to build roads and bridges. They are retiring in droves.

Harry

It always looked like worthwhile work to me, but it seems to go better when you aren't a dumbass about it and I've been down that road :eek:.

You'd expect to get a bunch of Civil Engineers back from Iraqi and Afghan reconstruction soon. Between that and the slump in residential and commercial development I wouldn't expect a shortage of civil engineers, though it might take a little to get them up to speed in state highway engineering and its unique bureaucracy. Sounds like you might end up babysitting a bunch of green contract engineers--you have my sympathy.

The program still seems to be in trial balloon stage. I think we probably should at least wait for program inception before we judge its effectiveness--I'm pretty sure it doesn't have any cost overruns yet :).

The comparison to the Interstate highway system of the 1950's makes me wonder how much of the economic prosperity of that time it could have stimulated? More than a little I'd guess. In addition I have little doubt that improved national infrastructure could improve US productivity in the future. Assuming it will be done 'well', and that the US also develops products that rest of the world will want to buy. Energy-efficient, energy saving products are certainly on my list for that. You may have your own lists.

DAS