"So where's our money, the money that is supposed to put people to work and rebuild the economy?"

[Better Believe It]

So, Robert Gibbs: Where's Our Money?
by John Feffer
John Feffer is the co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC.
August 18, 2010

The Obama administration has bailed out the banks. It has bailed out a couple too-big-to-fail corporations. It has bailed out the insurance companies with the generous provisions of the health care reform.

And it has bailed out the biggest barrel of pork of them all: the Pentagon. Sure, Pentagon chief Robert Gates wants to cut $100 billion in overhead costs over five years. And the defense sector is bracing for thousands of job cuts. But the Pentagon won't actually cut its overall spending. It will simply use those savings for its other missions, namely fighting wars. Pentagon spending for 2011 is projected to rise 3.4 percent. And that doesn't even include the $159 billion to cover the wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq.

So, where's our money? Where's the money that is supposed to put people to work and rebuild the U.S. economy?

Although most economists agree that the government should provide more stimulus money to avoid a double-dip crisis, there is no political support in Washington for a serious jobs bill. Instead, deficit-reduction fever has descended on Washington, and the Obama administration is willing to put almost everything on the cutting table, including Social Security.

Where's our money - that's not a question just from the "professional left." The American public's number one concern is the economy, and the vast majority of citizens have become pessimistic about the war in Afghanistan. Shifting money out of the Pentagon and into human needs, out of Afghanistan and into job creation at home, is a popular position. "Where's our money" is the cry of a new populism that, unfortunately, is represented at the moment by the "professional right," the organizations that are funding and framing the tea-party rage, the birthers, the anti-gun-control crowd, the Palinites, and all the other fringe elements that see government as an elite conspiracy against the little guy.

All of Obama's legislative victories, all the fine rhetoric about improving U.S. standing in the world - this will mean nothing at the polls. If the Obama administration doesn't turn around the economy fast and extract our soldiers from overseas quagmires, it will lose its congressional mandate and then, in 2012, its hold on the White House. If Robert Gibbs can't answer the simple question - where's our money - voters will do what they usually do in elections and let their pocketbooks determine their choices.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/08/18-5

[suston96]

1. How about this? A site that deals with your questions about the recovery money.......

http://www.recovery.gov/Pages/home.aspx?q=node/203

Is that right? 749,142 jobs between April 1 - June 30 2010?

Interesting link........

Oh, go here and see where Obama promised these jobs and delivered....it looks like.....

http://www.newser.com/story/61292/obama-promises-600k-stimulus-jobs.html

[Better Believe It]

4. So why did the Administration torpedo this House job creating transportation proposal?

Only a small percentage of the "stimulus" money has been used to for badly needed infrastructure and other useful public works jobs.

You would like me to provide the detailed breakdown of what the "stimulus" money is actually being used for? You do know that the lions share is going for tax cuts, right?

Meanwhile over 8 million jobs have been destroyed.

The public does not see any improvement in the economy.

The reason?

The economy is getting worse, not better.

So tell me why the Obama administration cut the legs out from under this House job creation proposal?


------------------------------------------


$500 billion plan to upgrade U.S. transportation hits federal pothole
By SCOTT SMITH
Scott Smith is director of strategic initiatives for HNTB Corporation
KansasCity.com
July 13, 2009

Our roads, highways and bridges are crumbling under the strain of overuse and old age.

But a comprehensive solution may have encountered a bottleneck that will postpone for 18 months or longer a push to correct the sorry state of our surface transportation system. Delay is something we can no longer afford ....

We find ourselves in this predicament because we have not had a national transportation plan since the interstate highway system was launched in 1956.

U.S. Rep. James Oberstar, a Minnesota Democrat and chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, addressed these huge needs by introducing the Surface Transportation Authorization Act of 2009. Oberstar proposes spending $500 billion over the next six years to transform our antiquated system into the reliable, sophisticated network we need to safely and efficiently move people and goods.

The legislation would provide approximately:

•$337 billion for highway construction, including at least $100 billion to begin long-awaited repairs to our national highway system and bridges.

•$100 billion for mass transit, including $12 billion for repairs.

•$50 billion to fund 11 high-speed rail corridors linking major metropolitan areas.

The total investment would create or sustain about 6 million family-wage jobs, many here in the Midwest as our region continues to grow in importance as a transportation hub.

Unfortunately, Oberstar’s bill has collided with a proposal put forth by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. The secretary wants Congress to pass an 18-month highway authorization bill that would put off a comprehensive, long-term solution and instead perpetuate a piecemeal mix of half-measures and temporary remedies for our nation’s transportation woes.

This collision need not turn into a pileup — if we make the right choice. Oberstar’s approach is the right way to go.

Please read the complete article at:

http://www.kansascity.com/business/story/1322647.html


-------------------------------

Will Oberstar’s Grand Highway Plan Stall?
By Colby Itkowitz, CQ Staff
June 27, 2009

Oberstar recently made public the outline of an authorization bill for the government’s highway and transit programs that he hopes will be the capstone of his long legislative career: a six-year, $450 billion package he describes as rivaling President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s creation of the Interstate Highway System more than a half-century ago.

The approximately 800-page draft measure that Oberstar has been refining for months envisions an ambitious overhaul, consolidating more than 100 individual federal programs into four broad categories, while pumping billions of dollars into new highway and high-speed rail projects. Most significant, it would require that federal money be spent to achieve specific goals and measures — cutting congestion in a city by a particular amount, for example — rather than distributing it only by formula among states or through congressional earmarks.

This moment, which is the apex of his political career, could not have come at a worse time for a chairman who puts such a high value on policy purity and such a relatively low value on political posturing. It’s been clear for months that President Obama and Oberstar’s fellow Democrats who are higher up in the congressional power structure are in no hurry to tackle a multi-year highway and transit bill, because they would have to find a way to pay for it — and the White House has said a flat “no” to the notion of raising the gasoline tax, even temporarily, as Oberstar has proposed.

In fact, no sooner had Oberstar arranged to release an outline of his proposal than Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood went to Capitol Hill to reveal the administration’s own plan: an 18-month extension of current programs combined with a few of Obama’s favorite ideas — nothing like the full-blown overhaul of which Oberstar dreams.

“They cut the legs out from under him,” said the top Republican on Oberstar’s committee, John L. Mica of Florida.

It’s not that Oberstar wasn’t warned about how difficult it would be. At the very outset of this Congress, his party’s leaders sharply limited his role in assembling the economic stimulus bill (PL 111-5), which Oberstar and others thought was tailor-made for financing transportation projects that could quickly put people to work. He had written his own proposal and held hearings, gathering testimony from economists and from state and local leaders who vowed that investments in transportation infrastructure were the greatest short-term stimulus. But as the measure grew, Oberstar was edged out, and transportation became just a sliver in the overall package.

Obama, congressional leaders and governors no doubt agree with Oberstar that the nation’s road and rail networks are in desperate need of repair and expansion. But persuading them to pay for it is another matter.

Please read the complete article at:

http://www.kansascity.com/business/story/1322647.html


-----------------------------------------------

Oberstar bucks Obama on transportation vision
The veteran Minnesota congressman is ready to take on the administration over a delay in policy makeover.

By KEVIN DIAZ, Star Tribune
July 16, 2009 - 7:54 PM

WASHINGTON - Moments before Minnesota Democrat Jim Oberstar planned to roll out his $450 billion transportation makeover last month, he was called to an adjoining room in the Rayburn House Office Building. There, he was confronted by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who told him that the Obama administration wanted him to hold off on his bill for 18 months.

Floored by the news, Oberstar pressed forward with the legislation anyway -- setting him on a collision course with the White House over his plan to transform the nation's transportation policies in the next six years by improving infrastructure and speeding up investments in trains and mass transit.

Though it appears to be an uphill climb in the Senate, where some key Democrats have acquiesced to the president, Oberstar has become increasingly critical of the White House. He continued the drumbeat Thursday. "We don't need an 18-month learning curve," he told members of the House Transportation Committee, which he chairs.

He also made clear his intention to pass the bill in the House with support from Republicans, some of whom have expressed sympathy for his predicament. "I've never seen a chairman undermined by an administration in the 30 years I've been around this place like they hosed our chairman," said Rep. John Mica of Florida, the ranking Republican on the committee.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif, who heads the Senate committee that deals with public works, moved this week to approve the 18-month delay, arguing that it would be difficult to increase the gas tax in the near term even with the support of labor groups and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has called on Congress to pass Oberstar's bill.

State officials say the highway bill could serve as a permanent stimulus to supplement the $787 billion package Congress approved this year to create jobs and lift the nation out of recession. "Our concern is whether the funding for projects continues the momentum of the stimulus," said Serge Phillips, federal relations manager for the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

Please real the complete article at:

W3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUUI" target="_blank">http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/50981057.html...


The first two links no longer work but you can read the original post at:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8528080

[suston96]

7. Your links are over a year old......

My link is to the appropriate agency dealing with the monies spent by the stimulus and is current.

I too agree with the need for a massive public works project to specifically repair the national infrastructure. Today's Boston.com has a story of concrete blocks falling from an overpass onto the interstate below. This is happening all over the country.

The jobless will have to work in areas for which they are not trained. It's been done before. Successfully. Try World War II and the entire nation becoming defense workers. That was an incredible wonder of the ages.

There was an old song during those years: We did it before and we can do it again.

Indeed, we can do it again!

[AndyA]

2. Lack of jobs will ultimately be Obama's undoing.

He should be smart enough to figure this out.

I'm sure it's just some chess maneuver, and a big jobs package will be announced in October as the "October surprise." (I'm not holding my breath.)

Meanwhile, we're spending millions to train people in India on how to do our jobs. So...American corporations can OFFSHORE EVEN MORE AMERICAN JOBS. And this was something Obama approved.

[MadMaddie]

3. The banks and corporations are sitting on huge profits and

are intentionally not hiring.

I do believe he and Congress need to create a works program and implement it. I guarantee when he does the Republicans will claim that the budget is out of control. This is a no win..

[Better Believe It]

5. Of course the Republicans will claim that. However, that's not a good reason to not do the right

thing and what's necessary to get Americans back to work.

[Occulus]

6. We need another Big Fuckin' Project

I think coast-to-coast high speed rail would do the trick. Another idea is fiberoptic "last mile" installation in all fifty states. Either one would produce and sustain huge number of jobs.

[ItNerd4life]

8. Simple really. The money is in government hands, not peoples hands.

And the government gives it to the companies that support it.

A tax vacation would have gone a lot further in rebuilding the economy than what was done.