by guest poster Gary Farber.
How much is $50 billion?
That's how much the president proposes we spend:
[…] It calls for a quick infusion of $50 billion in government spending that
White House officials said could spur job growth as early as next year —
if Congress approves. […] Central to the plan is the president’s call for an “infrastructure
bank,” which would be run by the government but would pool tax dollars
with private investment, the White House says. […] 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.
After months of campaigning on the theme that the president’s $787 billion stimulus package was wasteful, Republicans sought Monday to tag the new plan with the stimulus label. The Republican National Committee called it “stimulus déjà vu,” and Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House Republican whip, characterized it as “yet another government stimulus effort.”
Which sounds good to me, if not to you, but we can all agree that we don't want to "waste" money.
Even before the announcement Monday, Republicans were expressing caution.
“It’s important to keep in mind that increased spending — no matter the
method of delivery — is not free,” said Representative Pat Tiberi, an
Ohio Republican who is on a Ways and Means subcommittee that held
hearings on the bank this year. He warned that “federally guaranteed
borrowing and lending could place taxpayers on the hook should the
proposed bank fail.”
Such concern might have come earlier:
- The Department of Defense is unable to account for the use of $8.7
billion of the $9.1 billion it spent on reconstruction in Iraq.
- Source: Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (PDF).
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