Obama to Call for $50 Billion Spending for Infrastructure

I was in Vermont this Summer. It tripped me out seeing white people doing the manual labor. There was a convenience store in Stowe advertising for help wanted. The ad said they offered insurance benefits and a 401K plan.

 

ok but that hasnt happened and is not happening. I can tell you this as I watch it everyday in person. Seeing good workers not getting to stay in because of downsizing. The raises we used to get that made military life tolerable at all times low because of budget cuts. tools and parts for repairs and maintenace getting more scarce, having to wait longer for specific items when your in a time sensitive situation.

Hey training? Do you know how awesome it is to be the only trained fire party member on a out at sea fire team? Reason? Oh we have to wait for the new fiscal year to get money to send people to the schools.

Now question. DoD is a much larger scale then just military like I was talking about. Your now talking about National security on man levels. Like Homeland security. Is this also part. Does this mean we cut cost of looking for terrorist? (this is a sincere question as to is this drawn from the same budget pool)

And as for your sticking to your statement. I would be so agreeing if that was the case. But unfortunately, its not.

Military personel have felt the effects on military downsizing a butterfly effect of the DoD budget cuts.

 

Exerpts I liked from Obama's speech
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So it is good to be back in Milwaukee. Of course, this isn't my first time at Laborfest. I stood right here with you two years ago, when I was still a candidate for this office

So the problems facing working families are nothing new. But they are more serious than ever. And that makes our cause more urgent than ever. For generations, it was the great American middle class that made our economy the envy of the world. It's got to be that way again.

It was folks like you, after all, who forged that middle class. It was working men and women who made the twentieth century the American century. It was the labor movement that helped secure so much of what we take for granted today - the 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, family leave, health insurance, Social Security, Medicare, retirement plans, those cornerstones of middle class security that all bear the union label.

And it was that greatest of generations that built America into the greatest force for prosperity, opportunity and freedom the world has ever known. Americans like my grandfather, who went off to war just boys, returned home men, and traded one uniform and set of responsibilities for another. Americans like my grandmother, who rolled up their sleeves and worked in factories on the home front. When the war was over, they studied under the GI Bill; bought homes under the FHA; raised families buttressed by good jobs that paid good wages with good benefits.

It was through my grandparents' experience that I was brought up to believe that anything is possible in America. But they also knew the feeling when that opportunity is pulled out from under you. They would tell me about seeing their fathers or uncles losing jobs during the depression;

... Even when I was running for this office, we knew it would take time to reverse the damage of a decade's worth of policies that saw a few folks prosper while the middle class kept falling behind - and it will take more time than any of us wants to dig out of the hole created by this economic crisis.

…Well, anyone who thinks we can move this economy forward with a few doing well at the top, hoping it'll trickle down to working folks running faster and faster just to keep up - they just haven't studied our history.

We didn't become the most prosperous country in the world by rewarding greed and recklessness. We didn't come this far by letting special interests run wild. We didn't do it by just gambling and chasing paper profits on Wall Street. We did it by producing goods we could sell; we did it with sweat and effort and innovation. We did it by investing in the people who built this country from the ground up - workers, and middle-class families, and small business owners. We did it by out-working, out-educating, and out-competing everyone else.

Milwaukee, that's what we're going to do again. That's what's been at the heart of all our efforts: building our economy on a new foundation so that our middle class doesn't just survive this crisis - but thrives once we emerge. And over the last two years, that's meant taking on some powerful interests who had been dominating the agenda in Washington for too long.

That's why we're investing in growth industries like clean energy and manufacturing. And you've got leaders here like Tom Barrett and Jim Doyle who have been fighting to bring those jobs to Milwaukee and to Wisconsin. Because we want to see the solar panels and wind turbines and electric cars of tomorrow manufactured here. We don't just want to buy stuff made elsewhere; we want to grow our exports so the world buys products that say "Made in America."

Because there are no better workers than American workers, and I'll place my bet on you any day of the week. When the naysayers said we should just let the American auto industry vanish and take hundreds of thousands of jobs down with it, we said we'd stand by them if they made the tough choices necessary to compete once again - and today, that industry is on the way back.

Now, another thing we've done is make sound and long-overdue investments in upgrading our outdated and inefficient national infrastructure. We're not just talking new roads, bridges, dams and levees; but also a smart electric grid and the broadband internet and high-speed rail lines required to compete in the 21st century economy.
…All of this will not only create jobs now, but will make our economy run better over the long haul. It's a plan that history tells us can and should attract bipartisan support.

..But there are some folks in Washington who see things differently. When it comes to just about everything we've done to strengthen the middle class and rebuild our economy, almost every Republican in Congress said no.

Even where we usually agree, they say no. They think it's better to score political points before an election than actually solve problems. So they said no to help for small businesses. No to middle-class tax cuts. No to unemployment insurance. No to clean energy jobs. No to making college affordable. No to reforming Wall Street. Even as we speak, these guys are saying no to cutting more taxes for small business owners. I mean, come on! Remember when our campaign slogan was "Yes We Can?" These guys are running on "No, We Can't," and proud of it. Really inspiring, huh?

To steal a line from our old friend, Ted Kennedy: what is it about working men and women that they find so offensive?

When we passed a bill earlier this summer to help states save the jobs of hundreds of thousands of teachers, nurses, police officers and firefighters that were about to be laid off, they said "no" to that, too. In fact, the Republican who's already planning to take over as Speaker of the House dismissed them as "government jobs" that weren't worth saving. Not worth saving? These are the people who teach our kids. Who keep our streets safe. Who put their lives on the line for our own. I don't know about you, but I think those jobs are worth saving.

Bottom line is, these guys refuse to give up on the economic philosophy they peddled for most of the last decade. You know that philosophy: you cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires; you cut rules for special interests; you cut working folks like you loose to fend for yourselves. They called it the ownership society. What it really boiled down to was: if you couldn't find a job, or afford college, or got dropped by your insurance company - you're on your own.

Well, that philosophy didn't work out so well for working folks. It didn't work out so well for our country. All it did was rack up record deficits and result in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

…Let me just close by saying this. I know these are difficult times. I know folks are worried, and there's still a lot of hurt out here. I hear about it when I spend time in towns like this; I read about it in your letters at night. And when times are tough, it can be easy to give in to cynicism and fear; doubt and division - to set our sights lower and settle for something less.
But that is not who we are. That is not the country I know. We do not give up. We do not quit.

We are a people that faced down war and depression; great challenges and great threats; and lit the way for the rest of the world. Whenever times have seemed at their worst, Americans have been at their best.

Because it is in those times when we roll up our sleeves and remember that we will rise or fall together - as one nation, and one people. That's the spirit that started the labor movement. The idea that alone, we are weak. Divided, we fall. But united, we are strong. That's why we call them unions. That's why we call this the United States of America.

http://www.onmilwaukee.com/politics/articles/obamalabordaytranscript.html?viewall=1

 

What are the basis for your claims? Do you think roads last forever? Do you know what needs rebuilding?

Engineers, the Chamber of Commerce and truck drivers say otherwise. And guess what? People like a first world infrastructure. And that means upgraded ports and power and data transmission lines.

 

Well Friedman might be getting worried. He cheerleaded for the Iraq War and now is doing so for an Iran War.

His answer? Cut social security. Of course as a beneficiary of his near billionaire heiress wife, he doesn't have to worry.

 

At no point did I say that there have not been cuts to the benefits and pay of military personnel. I said that we could make massive cuts to defense spending without making those cuts. I just showed that military pay is a small part of defense spending to prove the point that we don't need to touch that.

Yes, I am in favor of making cuts to defense across the board. I don't think all the money we've been pumping into the DHS has really made us any safer. I don't think our nation needs to have a military larger than the next ten largest combined, especially when several of those ten are our allies. I don't think we need to play peace keeper or watchman all over the world. I don't think we need hundreds of bases outside the US.

 

It's no different on either side. lol

Republicans and Democrats are ignorant if they honestly think it is.

 

Fair enuf.

Agreed.

These bases serve major purposes. They serve as repair facilities for the most part. You cancel them out and now you have to travel further and pay more, lose a lot a time in the process. So if cutting cost is a issue, shutting down bases might not be the best step as to now all maintenance will be done elsewhere, and more costly and at a lost of time.

They also serve stronghold. Making other nations think twice about doing something. But like you said which I agreed with (and reword), we need to sop being the Earth police.

 

If it could be shown that a particular base being open overseas actually saves money, then it would make sense to keep it open. However, I doubt that applies to most of the large number of bases.

And why do we need bases in places like Heidelberg, Germany to make other nations think twice about doing something? What nations is this keeping in check and what is it they would do if we were not there in Heidelberg?

 

He does get it. That's what I love about the guy. He's actually taken the time to study history and see what has shaped our middle class and what has damn near destroyed it. It must be exasperating for him to see millions of Americans still support the obvious failed policies by supporting the same group that offers nothing new but those same policies.

 

With everyone talking about military expenditures; I thought this was intresting:

Current Worldwide Military Expenditure as a percentage of GDP

Maybe someone smarter than me can deduce something intriguing from this.

 

Nice speech. The thing that irritates me though is continuing to blame the Republicans when you don't need any of their votes and will not be like this in the future, gets old.

For someone that wants to unite the country he seems to do a lot of blaming. I personally can't remember seeing the country this divided, ever in my lifetime.

 

Some days I wake up and think we are reliving the last days of Rome. Are the Barbarians at the wall? Should we go on one last imaginary spending spree with counterfeit money before the walls come down? Will the Mad Hatter be here soon? Where is Alice when we need her?

 

Sounds great, but if Democrats really believe that then why do they continue to support free trade.

 

I would posit that Obama has tried repeatedly to get the GOP on board, but they have made their choice: to be the party of NO. For God's sake, the HCR bill was almost entirely regurgitated GOP proposals from a few years ago along with portions of a plan implemented by Mitt Romney. The olive branch was extended and the only thing Obama has gotten in return is hyperbolic name calling.

 

If 41 Senators are blocking something from getting passed and 40 of them are Republicans, who is more responsible for the obstruction, the one Democrat/Independent or the 40 Republicans? It's especially irritating when these Republicans are blocking something that they either used to be in favor of (before Obama was President) or that they will go bragging about back home once it gets passed entirely by Democrats.

I agree that blaming Republicans doesn't really accomplish much, but only because people are too stupid to hold the Republicans accountable for being obstructionist hypocrites.

 

What's blocking this and most of the Democrats bills is the American people. They dislike this bill and they dislike this economic strategy of spending our way out of a recession.

55% oppose 31% approve

 

The flip side here in Houston I see white people who refuse to get a job, milk the unemployment system and are the majority of panhandlers you see on the side of the road. Come to think of it the I'd put the ratio of hispanics vs. whites panhandling at about 1:20. It's rare. Maybe I don't get out to the east side much.

 

What is wrong with the American people that they don't get on board with Obama? He is the embodiment of Truth Justice and the American way.

Socialism! Socialism! Socialism! Socialism is a people working together for the greater good. The only people who hate it are the people who exploit the laissez-faire system to the detriment of the people. Employers should want to pay a decent wage and provide benefits for their workers because they are their neighbors and church members. They should want to provide safe work conditions, reasonable hours, education, honest investment information, full tax records, shared risk insurance, and compassionate indigent care.

I'm the agnostic misanthrope here, why am I in the minority on issues the patriotic, tradition loving, God-fearing Americans seem to fall so short on?

 

And the Democrats don't obstruct? It's on both sides which is the problem. They both take money from lobbyists, usually the same ones too. It should be illegal to profit from any company who has ever contributed to a candidates campaign. Lock out the lobbyists and let the common people have their say.