Further, road work jobs are construction jobs, but do not employ, for the most part, construction workers who otherwise would be building houses, shopping malls, office buildings, etc. There may be a limited need for electricians (street lights), but not plumbers, bricklayers, carpenters, sheet metal workers, cement finishers, drywallers, roofers, painters, etc. Most highway work jobs are for heavy equipment operators, jobs for which one can't qualify overnight. There is also a major issue of the heavy equipment itself -- a limited pool that is not easily expanded. Contractors will not buy expensive equipment to expand based on one limited spending program; they will stretch the equipment they have. Expanded infrastructure spending will create few new jobs in the short term, and some (not a lot)in the long term. It will marginally reduce overall unemployment. It will give politicians the opportunity to put up large signs saying "Your tax dollars at work." My Dad used to note that you heardly ever saw anyone actually working near one of those signs!!!!!

Now I understand why all I see are plastic barrels lining streets in need of repair and signs reading "paid for by American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds" (me) while no workers ever show and no work actually gets done. Obviously obozo believes that if this business model is good for General Motors - which has been transformed into Government Motors - it must be good for America.

The reason "orange barrel" construction projects get a bad rap is quite simple.

Every time I fill up with fuel, buy a tire or pay a fee to dispose of used oil, I am paying excises taxes and sales taxes. These taxes were designed and passed to pay for infrastructure improvement and construction, but were used short-sightedly to fund entitlement programs and political payoff schemes.

I've ALREADY PAID the taxes designed to do this work, yet the government wants more to cover THEIR malfeasance and mis-spending.

If I don't balance my family budget, I have to go bankrupt, ruin my credit and maybe lose my job.

The government merely passes more taxes and makes my fiscal responsibility all the harder to achieve.

Not sure about you Dennis, but I see an aweful lot of brand new heavy construction equipment around, ant Catepiller is reporting record sales.

True Patriot - Some may be 'good' projects, but I see way to many 'busy' projects which will only add to our debt.

True Patriot - no doubt our infrastructure needs lots of repair. What's getting "a bad rap" is the fact that all this money is going to pay off unions, not get anything built or refurbished. And THAT will always get brought out as one of the reasons to get rid of this waste.

Michelle,

The so called "project labor agreement" should be called what it is: the project labor order.

And we all know what the PLO stands for.

Duke

Interesting

Reckon the TARP sign business will be ramping up.

@True Patriot

There is nothing inherently wrong with infrastructure spending, however, Hard Thought has it right. Funds are already collected for this purpose from various venues (local, state and national) depending on the location and nature of the project. Aside from the national highway system, major ports, etc. Most infrastructure spending is the purvue of the states, not the national government. Our Dear Leaders plan is nothing more than an additional layering up of spending and debt on top of an already obscene amount of spending and debt. And yes, this one is going entirely to the benifit of Unions - mostly public sector Unions.

Of course the Statists just don't get it. Either that, or they just don't care because they have a specific goal they wish to achieve with the destruction of the U.S. economy. An economy runs on capital and the flow of that capital through the marketplace. From TARP, to Stimulus, to the bloated Congressional budget and all its entitlement programs, to now THIS second chapter of "Stimulus", they continue to remove vast sums of capital from the private sector. And then they wonder why the economy is not recovering. Because Government DOES NOT create wealth, it saps it. The private sector creates wealth, but if you want to nationalize the entire economy, then go ahead and see how well that works out. There are plenty of examples in history to illustrate the end result there... Some of which are extremely ugly.

That bonehead Tim Kaine said today that the tax cuts were the reason for the recession, implying I guess, that if we let taxes increase (remove more capital from the market) then all will be well. Really? Is he really that stupid? Or does he think we're all just that stupid? If he was in earnest, then he is completely in the dark as to what the root causes of the recession were, as well as the effect of high tax rates on business and industry in the area of re-investment for building, expansion, newhires, etc. In short, if the government is taking more of your money... you CANNOT spend it on those things. So you pull back, perhaps down size, layoff of few folks (who then stop paying their own taxes and go on the dole) and try to survive. Meanwhile the Unions are just havin' a party... and the public sector grows at the expense of the private sector.

Who is John Galt?

What a crock of steaming hooey. Obama says this will not add to the deficit and how many times have we heard that one. If I am behind on my house payment, credit cards and car note and take a vacation that I pay for with cash, that does not add to my 'deficit', but it does not pay for my already outstanding obligations either. I think accounting is over Obama's pay grade.

To Caseace - the obozo may be right, at least partially. He and the Fed have been growing the money supply by 15-20% every year (started under Bush's term). What that means is that they print money when and as needed. Of course, most of it is still going to banks with "toxic" loans as payback for their contribution in helping this financial bust. When they get saturated, it will hit the economy in the form of inflation. Stand by. Some scenarios say this could happen in literally hours. Remember the Carter inflation? That will seem like a picnic. And won't China be happy holding that bag of s---?

The incestuous vicious circle of the obozo admin and the unions is quickly morphing into a black hole. The American Sheeple are waking up and shedding their wool by the millions. As the sense of urgency increases for both sides, the progressives will take ever increasing beatings on all fronts. They made their bed and now they can lie in it while the rest of us get to work restoring this country's greatness.

The only work I've seen in progress since obomba took over is one 14 person crew in the process of placing one of his "I did this" signs on a highway that had been under repair since clinton was in office and had finished the sweep-up mode in Oct 2008.

They only reason I had time to observe this in depth is because they had a four lane highway cut down to two lanes — during rush hour — while they added obomba's sign to the existing "Your tax dollars at work" construction sign that had nobody's name on it.

obomba — he da bomb!

What do you expect from Obozo when, during his election campaign, he tells unions that "I owe you big time!" He's been taking care of them from the first day of his administration. His so-called bailout of the auto industry illegally paid off the unions with ownership of the companies. It's continued downhill from there.

Union bailout. Got to pay off the unions for the $90 million they'll give Democrats in the 2010 campaign.

Talking sense to this administration reminds me of trying to get an answer from Bob Brinker.

Mr. Brinker is fond of saying on his radio show that the Bush tax cuts hurt the government income stream and he could prover that. He then goes on to say that you merely need to envision the income stream for the government if we were to reduce all taxes to zero. My question to him was to ask how much the income stream would be if all taxes were raised to 100%.

I've received no answer.

Anyone notice how the unions and the owners have traded places? Unions were originally formed to protect the average worker from the capitalist company owner who had utter control over the employee and the ear of government. Now, the unions have the government in THEIR pocket, and, once again the average worker is left in the lurch. The bottom line is, the best thing for government (and the unions, as far as that goes)to do is step aside and let the market take care of itself. I defy anyone on this site, True (?) Patriot included, to name me one, just ONE, government solution that has worked as advertised. Just one. Oh, and True Patriot, I think it's about time you found some honesty and changed your screen name to True Communist.

To the person who thinks he's a "true patriot": Everything obama and his gang do is tainted in some manner, or completely corrupted. As you well know, or perhaps I'm giving you too much credit, this current "plan" is aimed at helping out unions, rewarding unions. Just as the stimulus bill had nothing to do with stimulus and the healthcare bill had nothing to do with healthcare, this fiasco has little to do with fixing our infrastructure. These are gifts in disguise to unions, and obama needs useful idiots (if the shoe fits...) to help him tout this to gullible voters. The SAD DAY was when misled voters in this country were hoodwinked by a slick-talking Chicago community organizer dedicated to redistribution of the wealth of hard working Americans.

"True Patriot" have you ever met a government boondoggle you didn't defend?

You decry the "bad rap" that Obama's union-payoff scheme is getting on this site, but you're simply pretending that this corrupt means of getting construction done is the normal way things should be accomplished. That's preposterous.

A true patriot would advocate what's best for the country ahead of what's best for a few union workers and labor leaders, would demand corruption be ended instead of defending it every time it's exposed, and would insist our elected leaders do the right things instead of making excuses when they feather their own nests. But then, that's the difference between the Left and the Right: the Left doesn't believe there is such a thing as the right thing. There's no right, no wrong. Only shades of gray. Well, we're all getting a first class taste of what that bankrupt belief system gets us. The True Believers and parasites can go right along defending the immoral hounds currently running the show, or they can learn their lesson as so many of their brethren have already done -- and become Conservatives.

Until that conversion takes place, "True Patriot" if he wishes to be honest about his beliefs and loyalties, would do well to relabel himself "True Believer."