Obama's $50 Billion Union Infrastructure Boondoggle

[Geee]

Townhall:

President Obama calls his latest attempt to revive the economy a "Plan to Renew and Expand America's Roads, Railways and Runways." I'm calling it "The Mother of all Big Dig Boondoggles." Like the infamous "Big Dig" highway spending project in Boston, this latest White House infrastructure spending binge guarantees only two results: Taxpayers lose; unions win.

The plan would add at least $50 billion more to the nearly $230 billion already allocated in the original trillion-dollar stimulus law for infrastructure. Less than one-third of that infrastructure stimulus money has been spent, but the urgency to pile on has increased exponentially as the midterm elections approach and unemployment hovers near 10 percent. So, the president says he wants to "put people back to work" through a new "upfront investment" in surface transportation, airports and the air-traffic control system paid for by repealing tax incentives for the oil and gas industries -- followed by massive, unpaid-for expenditures on pie-in-the-sky high-speed rail, "environmental sustainability" and "livability," whatever that means.

Obama spoke emotionally at an AFL-CIO rally on Labor Day about unemployed construction workers. A "lot of those folks, they had lost their jobs in manufacturing and went into construction; now they've lost their jobs again," he said. "It doesn't do anybody any good when so many hardworking Americans have been idled for months, even years, at a time when there is so much of America that needs rebuilding."

But here's the rub: Not all workers are equal in Obama's eyes. And most of them will remain "idled" by the Democrats' own design. The key is E.O. 13502, a union-friendly executive order signed by Obama in his first weeks in office, which essentially forces contractors who bid on large-scale public construction projects worth $25 million or more to submit to union representation for its employees.

[pollyannaish]

The key goofiness with the federal government "putting people back to work" with projects like this is that it assumes what kinds of workers are out of work, rather than letting the economy figure that out for itself.

 

As a result, you may end up not creating jobs for people who are already out of work, or creating short term jobs for people who need to change careers. In both cases, it simply prolongs the misery, rather than allowing "nature" to take its course and figure it out organically.

 

Come to think of it, that's exactly the same approach they take with the environment. They believe they can control everything.

 

My first thought is...what dopes for thinking they can, and my second thought is...why the heck would anyone want to be responsible for all that in the first place!

[Argyle58]

The key goofiness with the federal government "putting people back to work" with projects like this is that it assumes what kinds of workers are out of work, rather than letting the economy figure that out for itself.

 

As a result, you may end up not creating jobs for people who are already out of work, or creating short term jobs for people who need to change careers. In both cases, it simply prolongs the misery, rather than allowing "nature" to take its course and figure it out organically.

 

Come to think of it, that's exactly the same approach they take with the environment. They believe they can control everything.

 

My first thought is...what dopes for thinking they can, and my second thought is...why the heck would anyone want to be responsible for all that in the first place!

 

The key to the decision for these types of programs is that virtually every job done on these projects, regardless of what part of the country that would be involved, would be union jobs. Union workers make up something less than 20% of the workforce, but are now getting, thanks to little implants into every bill passed by this congress, pretty near 100% of all government contracts. So, while the construction industry is suffering a much higher unemployment rate than the public at large, you will have to join a union to take part in the pork, er..."STIMULUS" projects.

[Evad]

"infrastructure"

Obama code for black hole..

or RAT hole

We don't need meaningless government dole outs, we need these RAT out and done with so real workers can get back to real work in a real economy.