Rachel Maddow Show: Will Republicans Try to Block Infrastructure Projects?
By Heather Friday Dec 26, 2008 6:01am
DOWNLOAD (32)
PLAY (67)
Rachel reports on the crumbling state of America's infrastructure which is in dire need of repair and the Obama administration's plans to use infrastructure projects as a way to stimulate the economy. A.B. Stoddard weighs in on whether the Republicans will actually block the projects or not. If they listen to Karl Rove they will. Stoddard feels that if they keep the projects free of earmarks and pork they'll get them though. It is pretty astounding to see these Republicans finally finding religion on spending when they've had no qualms about a bottomless pit called Iraq for the entire Bush Presidency.
Login or Register to post comments.
then they are truly in the wilderness and doomed to shrink to a footnote.
Its time America took out its trash then it will be able to get down to business... Rove Bush Cheney these guys all need to go to jail
We can't afford it.
and more to the point....
our lenders are just about ready to say no more.
We are a credit risk. California, the world's 8th largest economy, is nearly - or already there - bankrupt.
We have little to no economic growth, and for the foreseeable future its looking bleak.
and there is evidence brewing that the US government/military is already gearing up for insurrections and calls for withdrawing from the Union.
http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2008/12...
signed between US and Canada in San Antonio TX 2/14/08
The press release is there on the Northcom website for all to see.
Basically it allows American and Canadian troops to ignore the common border during emergencies...
Canada can use US troops to quell their citizens, likewise the US can call upon Canadian troops to walk the streets of the US.
Of course finding out who did what and getting restitution after some civil event, and damages for wrongful actions will be almost impossible.
I seem to recall that in 1776 and 1812 this caused problems.
more or less, mostly more.
TAS, have you seen now that local police departments are in the running now to get those lovely Pain-beam compliance tools/weapons?
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16339-u...
They really don't keep hidden who they think the enemies are.
Anybody who protests, anybody that complains, anyone that resists.
reminds me of the pain sticks used by the robots in THX 1138.
http://www.bergen-filmklubb.no/images/Dystopi...
n/t
8yrs raiding the coffers for their friends but now they plead that the cupboard is bare. Of course it is you mofo's, you emptied it.
They just never stop trying to tear down the country do they? And there are still morons out there who support them. Sure I can understand support from the wealthy and the corporations. But how oh how can they still get the vote from Joe the f&*%! plumber types.
As I have said for years and years, I could understand the workings of a martian's mind before understanding why people can support what the Repukes have become.
have their fingers in the cookie jar.
The multi trillion dollar bailout is for their benefit to restore their savings and loot wiped out by the stock market and financial crash.
Trickle up taken to the extreme.
As long as their hatred for Dems stays intact, and their taxes are cut. They'll be as happy as two pigs in a poke.
Looks like the new Rovian strategy is for the GOP to be the party of homewreckers and obstructionists to bring America to its knees and then triumpantly claim "victory" by blaming others. Since these arrogant schmucks can't have it 100% their way they are going to burn down our house and teach us a lesson.
Good luck with this tactic Karl because the public will have none of it. Your insipid, trash talking party is utterly devoid of any ideas to lift up America, and your scorched earth tactics are despicable. Get a clue, you malignant pig and lend a hand instead of pointing a finger.
throwing a bunch of funny money at "infrastructure" (a little pork, perhaps?), the new administration should do some serious thinking about whether the correct economic prescription for the Great Depression is the correct prescription for the current collapse.
I don't think it is.
And I don't think economists, including favorites here (with the exception of Dean Baker), are considering the whole mess correctly.
In the G.D. of the 1930s, there was no credit card debt, there were no CDOs and CDSs, there was no burdensome national debt, and there were few if any government entitlements.
I think, except for the very wealthy, we're mostly fucked.
Long ago and far away, in March of 2008, when a trillion was still a trillion, Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz wrote, recounted here, of the ultimate cost of Georgie's most extraordinary Iraq adventure (and his side show in Afghanistan) being something like three trillion dollars.
I, for one, was impressed, that seemed like a really, really big number.
We have come a long way since then. Now with Paulson the Plunderer's even more extraordinary Wall Street Crook's adventure, come unfolded, we now can more comfortably get our collective minds around the amount of one trillion.
It isn't so much.
Three trillion, not to worry.
Eight trillion, no hay problema.
Fifty three trillion in unfunded Social Security and Medicare obligation, well, that IS big.
But to think REALLY big, you need to appreciate the the world derivatives market of over FIVE HUNDRED TRILLION.
Now you are talking serious money. Except it only exists in the Wall Street Gambler's minds, and in their bets, er contracts, when they come due. Will we bail all of those out? Time will tell.
No infrastructure will be needed for me, thank you very much, I will be in a mud hut.
I have a little patch of ground here all staked out.
Come Spring thaw, my mud will be ready.
So alas, no bailing out possible.
"It is pretty astounding to see these Republicans finally finding religion on spending when they've had no qualms about a bottomless pit called Iraq for the entire Bush Presidency."
The only time a republican finds religion is when it serves their needs. You better believe the republicans will do everything they can to undermine Obama's mandate to bring America back on track from their gross incompetence and mismanagement. By sabotaging Obama they can hang the failure around his neck in 2010 and 2012 in an attempt for them to make a political come back. The voters have spoken but the republicans don't give a shit about that they have their own agenda, America be damned. That's how much they love this country.
CIA gives Viagra to aging Afghani warlords so they can service their multiple young wives:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/...
This is all beginning to read like a bad screenplay.
I keep waiting for Superman to show up to set things straight and he never comes.....
Of course, now with the help of the CIA, the old Afghani warlords will be coming.
Oh, nevermind.
?
fastfeat has turned into ysbadaddan!
ysb is probably hungover...
Who remodels when their facing bankruptcy?
If oversight hasn’t worked in the years we have been in Iraq and with the $700,000,000,000.00 handout to Wall Street, who thinks it will work now?
Are we just going to rebuild the old unconnected crap using 19th Century engineering that we have now, or are we going to replace this with contemporary engineering with a unity between different municipalities, countries, states, and federal jurisdictions?
Where are the plans for change now? What is the estimated cost? Where is the labor force going to come from? Will there be no compete contracts that work so badly in are rebuilding of other countries?
The is should be the biggest post war (World War II) project ever and their already acting like it’s another works project that will leave another layer of crap to be replaced, created by the unimaginative, overseen by corporation that have paid off politicians of both parties, with nothing to show for it in the in but an even more empty treasury.
Get the plan on paper before you start shoveling out money to people that will think they are getting free money to spend any way they want.
Enough with spend now, think later.
come on, you know it don't work that way?
accountability?
LMFAO.
They would build inefficient transportation systems to maintain the status quo, not anything ground breaking or transitional to a new transportation paradigm.
It will be the big 3 of infrastructure projects.
It stops the public mobilizing and marching on seats of gov.
As in that strange video that popped up on MSN videos, US forces demolished an intact motorwsy (highway) flyover bridge in Iraq, the video got put on the social video sites as a cool example of visible ground shock waves.
But by the unofficial publishing of it, it showed up the deliberate dismantling of the Iraqi infrastructure in all its illegal glory.
Mil and gov have helicopters and planes, grumbling civilians will only be able to travel on the approved routes and only at gunpoint.
It works in an occupied country like Iraq, it will work nicely here too.
n/t
Is blindly transfer money to states and municipalities, with no accountability, who will pass on the contracts to their buddy corporations, or their own workers. Anybody ever see town workers actually working? Takes 5 of them to rake up a pile of leaves. This will be the biggest throwaway of money EVER.
My province, and my feds are going to do the same thing. Every time they do something like this, it's nothing more than porkbarreling. Watch. It's going to be like that. Then the feds will gladhand and slap each other on the back and say "see what we did for you peasants, now vote for us again".......politicians cannot run government. How are they going to run a business venture? They aren't.
we haven't had a hell of a lot of luck letting business run our government either. Privatization has been nothing but one major scandal after another from the appalling conditions at military hospitals to KBR killing our military personnels with electrocution chambers disguised as showers.
Yeah that way we can have Blackwater on OUR corners gunning down innocent civilians because some dickhead in an SUV ran a stop sign.
No, the problem isn't who is running government functions. The problem is that nobody is making sure they do those functions or that they get punished when they fuck things up. That's not going to change if private companies are the ones providing the services - we can look to Iraq and Afghanistan for that. Just ask all the US Soldiers who've been electrocuted in the shower or have taken ill because of polluted water all provided by Haliburton's subsidiary.
unless things are worse then than they are today.
One way to guarantee that they will be--worse that is--will be to interfere in every effort to rectify the clusterfucks left behind by the busheviks.
They have passed the 'football' to the Dimz. Now EVERYTHING is Mr.O's problem. "Failure" is inevitable, given the scope and scale of the disasters on the table. Nobody can end wars, fix the economy, bring health-care, or restore the OTHER consequences of nearly 30 years of tax-breaks and give-aways to the rich.
NAGAHAPUN, friends...
So the stage is set to finally and totally screw the Dim "party," Dims in general, and the whole Nation, and blame it on "the Negro"...
Hmmmm. I'm sure nobody could ever have anticipated this...
I suspect most Americans believe the economy will hit a bottom (maybe next year or in 2010) and then rebound.
There is the possibility, however, that when bottom is hit, we'll just stay there.
It's dead.
In decay.
Rotting from the top down.
We're in an eternal recession.
Sorry 'bout dat...
in 2010 and 2011, so more fun and games and repossessions.
Of course bailing out the people on the cheap mortgages will just infuriate all the responsible traditional mortgage holders.
So whatever happens there is going to be a lot of angry people.
The party of larceny and murder.
They will not stop until the middle class is gone and the infrastructure is in ruins.
Only then will the peons stop squealing about their "rights" and their "dignity.
Only then will they feel fortunate to get a job that pays a dollar a day, every day of the week with no vacations.
As a plus, enlistments to the imperial armed forces will increase.
This, in turn, will enable us to liberate our oil in Iran and Venezuela, where we will be greeted as liberators!
Who is karl Rove?
Republicanitis
With the American infrastructure to appear to be in such peril, worse case scenario is that it may not be long before we see things like what Luke Wilson saw in the movie "Idiocracy" looking out the window in 2505 at the extremely faulty infrastructure with building almost collapsed and tied together and bridges that cars fall off it with a sign next to it saying, "It's better than nothing". - That's likely the consequence of GOP rule. It seems to go from bad to worse with bridges collapsing, water main breaks, and cranes falling. I applaud Biden for his proposal to have a stimulus package to help create more construction jobs to revamp America's infrastructure. As for the repubs, during one of the GOP primary debates last year, Mike Huckabee (which I am usually unfond of) said one smart thing about the stimulus package last spring and that was instead of giving people stimulus checks of up to $600-$1200 which they will very likely use to go shopping, whereas if that same money for the stimulus was used to create an extra lane on I-95 on the east coast between Florida and Maine, there would be more jobs created - indeed, perhaps a rare intelligent thing for a repub to say. The problem with Huck's popularity is that he seemed like a Christofascist zealot which really hurt his chances of getting the GOP nomination over McGrampy.
As for American infrastructure in general, the question is how can jobs be created with any adequate supply of money? Many are worried how jobs can be formed if there is virtually no money, let alone how the deficit in the trillions is expected to be paid off with fewer and fewer jobs. Maybe redistribution of the wealth is actually underrated, after the trickle-down economic policy is a huge blunder that Reagan created. Thus, we may need to have more of some kind of egaltarian society that's transparent and open enough for opportunities to create jobs instead of just giving to the rich first and congress voting every time to raise their own paychecks. The working middle class is essentially the backbone of the economy, and I hate it when we work harder and earn less typically below the poverty line. If only unions were more energized and had better backbones that prevent execs from not reinvesting his profits for his workers as opposed to splurging it on his own luxuries.
I always thought "infrastructure" was a sexy topic ... never more so than when Rachel does her Eartha Kitt meow-growl (may that Fine Lady rest in peace)
The from-the-ground-up model does work -- when every American rejects negativity and embraces the concept that we either sink or rise TOGETHER, then anyone cutting their nose off to spite their face will be exposed for the noseless nobodies they truly are.
No more business as usual! For a picture of what every American city could become while mired in the depths of political corruption, consider Memphis, Tennessee, where hopefully the FBI are about ready to pull a Kilpatrick on the current Mayor/Mob Boss, Willie Herenton.
Wow, that's how you kill the lies from the Republicans. You use truth and honesty and common sense. A.B. Stoddard was so taken back she couldn't respond with the usual lies and Republican BS talking points!
Why are Republicans evil traitors and want to destroy everything good in America? Very simple answer, Power and Greed...
Because they only care about themselves and they assume they are entitled where they could care less of others.
Of course they'll block it. Their goal is to make the Democrats look bad so they can retake power in 2012. The only way they can do that from the minority with a Democrat in the white house is blocking everything that comes down the pike and then claiming that the Democrats are 'do nothing'.
These are the guys who blocked a non binding resolution honoring the contribution of American mothers on mothers day because they just had to be dicks about it.
These guys don't give a damn about America they only care about money and power and the only way they can return to that, since they don't have any real desire to fix what they've destroyed is by making the other guy look bad.
Could you make that purring sound one more time, please?
...if those sons-of-bitches try to obstruct these measures. It makes perfect sense to me. I have been screaming this for the past twenty years, with no one paying attention.
We need to "invest in America". We can put hundres of thousands of people to work, garner millions if not BILLIONS of dollars of tax money, and we can make this country something to be proud of again.
Good point that ronnie started this whole fiasco. The f*cktard repugs have this mantra of "no taxes", "lower the taxes", "government IS the problem.." bullshit...and it's all utter nonsense. But the simpletons LOVE to spins the shit to the other simpletons who are brain dead and beyond hope anyway.
This is our ONE chance. We have a Democratic White House, a Democratic Senate, a Democratic House...and it's time to straighten this ancient country out. We have ALL been bragging about how we are "number one". Now, it's time to PROVE IT!!
If they allow the rebuilding of the infrastructure, it will only be through privatization.
when He's in Jail for life? I surely hope not.
Let the Republicans try to block the economic stimulus plan. Then Obama and the Democrats can respond by closing military bases in Republican districts.
Both sides jaw about the pros and cons of a bill when it finally comes time for someone to invoke cloture. Cloture means it's time to stop talking about it, set time for final debate then vote. It takes sixty votes to stop debate (cloture). The Republicans have enough seats to block every vote in the Senate and they have used it without mercy or pity.
What's the nuclear option? It only takes a simple majority to change the rules of the Senate. They can easily change the number of votes needed to pass cloture. It hasn't been a popular thing to do, but, if the Senate Republicans are going to do nothing but block everything Obama tries to do it may be time to play that card.
Let them filibuster..... Let them be seen on TV by Americans blocking bill after bill after bill that would help make jobs for them. Bring out the cots.
Obama needs to do a weekly prime time "fireside chat". Here is a possible content of the show.
Part 1: Talk about the current problems of the country, to show they they are listen. Talk about how individual American can make a difference.
Part 2: Explain bills that they would like to get passed, to try and fix what was talked about in part 1. Key for this is to only pass clean and simple bills to repair America*1. No pork and on one subject each per bill. Make congress do some work.
Part 3: Talk about bills that they are trying to get passed and are being blocked by congress thru filibuster or the like. Show the people on the screen doing the filibuster and with a scrolling list of their name state and contact number.
*1 This should be for bills relating to the economic problems in general, not just ones shown on tv.
Of course they will. We should know that by now.
You and I both Know that Rove(TURD BLOSSOM) should be in a ORANGE Jump SUIT with Legg IRONS but it will never happen because THE CORPORATE CONRTOLED MEDIA has HIS BACK, just as they do Bush and Crime Family, just look back they were the ones that PUT Bush and Crime Family in OFFICE for Eight (8) years. With the Help of Pelosi and REID. Brake up the CORPORATE CONRTOLED MEDIA and start REBUILDING the DEMOCRATIC PARTY or start a new PARTY.
Republican Senators up for re-election in 2010.
* Richard Shelby of Alabama
* Lisa Murkowski of Alaska
* John McCain of Arizona
* Mel Martinez of Florida - will not run in 2010 (announced 12-02-08)
* Johnny Isakson of Georgia
* Mike Crapo of Idaho
* Chuck Grassley of Iowa
* Jim Bunning of Kentucky
* David Vitter of Louisiana
* Kit Bond of Missouri
* Judd Gregg of New Hampshire
* Richard Burr of North Carolina
* George Voinovich of Ohio
* Tom Coburn of Oklahoma
* Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania
* Jim DeMint of South Carolina
* John Thune of South Dakota
* Bob Bennett of Utah
That's 18 of them. Almost half of the 41 or 42 Republicans in the Senate.
LA Times says 19 R seats & 15 D seats up for election, so perhaps this list omits one
Republican.
Who says all earmarks are bad?
The appropriations system in Congress and the process for deciding which projects to authorize are not necessarily corrupt -- like any other system or process, they can be corrupted by corrupt individuals. When they are, the individuals who have engaged in such corruption should be punished.
The truth is that most people complain about "pork barrel spending", but still support authorization and funding of projects in their own local areas.
I guess "pork" must be defined as "a bridge in somebody else's district". If it's in yours, then it's a vitally important project necessary to ensure the future growth and viability of the local economy.
Republicans in Congress won't try to block this bill. Know why? Because the Republicans want approval for THEIR projects, which they won't get if the block the Democrats.
Pork barrel spending or vitally important local initiative? I guess it depends on where you're from and the location of the project.
I've been feeling much more thankful lately when I cross a bridge on the road either over a river or highway and it doesn't collapse - whew! No clumbling (yet).
Login or Register to post comments.