"President Obama, looking to stimulate a sluggish economy and create jobs, called Monday for Congress to approve major upgrades to the nation’s roads, rail lines and runways — part of a six-year plan that would cost tens of billions of dollars and create a government-run bank to finance innovative transportation projects....
....Specifically, the president wants to rebuild 150,000 miles of road, lay and maintain 4,000 miles of rail track, restore 150 miles of runways and advance a next-generation air-traffic control system.
The White House did not offer a price tag for the full measure or say how many jobs it would create. If Congress simply reauthorized the expired transportation bill and accounted for inflation, the new measure would cost about $350 billion over the next six years. But Mr. Obama wants to “frontload” the new bill with an additional $50 billion in initial investment to generate jobs, and vowed it would be “fully paid for.” The White House is proposing to offset the $50 billion by eliminating tax breaks and subsidies for the oil and gas industry.
Yes please. Here's the original news story, and here's the post from Treehugger that pointed me in the direction. (When I saw the heading from TH, I actually had a legitimate stop-and-stare-slackjawed moment)
Thoughts? I'm thrilled about the rail upgrades, albeit a little choked about how small the amount of rail upgrades is compared to the roads (4,000 to 150,000) but it's a great start considering the crippling damage that's been done to the continent's rail networks over the last sixty or seventy years.
I'm also pretty damn happy with how Obama's going all-out with general reforms and ideas. Everyone complains about the world and the system and then they complain when he shows us huge ideas that at least have the potential to change it. He told us he would bring change, we voted for him (well, not "we" - wrong country - but you know what I mean), and now that he is, y'know, doing what he said he would, we're all outraged? What the fuck?
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