When all the damn potholes are filled and we can cruise along unfettered on our highways...then you can figure out other stuff to spend money on. Daily travel impacts more Americans than anything. Im perfectly fine with spending money on the road infrastructures.

(04-01-2021 10:26 AM)Redwingtom Wrote:  

(04-01-2021 09:24 AM)vandiver49 Wrote:  ...most of it is filled with High Speed Rail and transit dreams. Just projects that will enable consultants to soak up design and planning fees without a shovel of dirt ever being turned over.

Link?

This from CNN says $621B goes to transportation including roads, bridges, public transit, rail, ports, waterways, airports and electric vehicles in service of improving air quality, reducing congestion and limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

Further, it only mentions $80b going to fix service backlogs on Amtrak's higher speed rail line.
Here's what's in Biden's infrastructure proposal

The link is the bill itself

$115 billion on accelerated road and bridge repairs
$20 billion for “vision zero” and other anti-auto programs
$85 billion for mass transit
$80 billion for Amtrak’s backlog and expansion of Amtrak service
$174 billion supporting electric vehicle manufacturers
$25 billion on airports
$17 billion on inland waterways
$104 billion undesignated by the bill

I would argue that the lines 2,3 and 4 fit my description. The $80B to Amtrak will mostly be used on building new Hudson River Tunnels.

(04-02-2021 09:37 AM)vandiver49 Wrote:  

(04-01-2021 10:26 AM)Redwingtom Wrote:  

(04-01-2021 09:24 AM)vandiver49 Wrote:  ...most of it is filled with High Speed Rail and transit dreams. Just projects that will enable consultants to soak up design and planning fees without a shovel of dirt ever being turned over.

Link?

This from CNN says $621B goes to transportation including roads, bridges, public transit, rail, ports, waterways, airports and electric vehicles in service of improving air quality, reducing congestion and limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

Further, it only mentions $80b going to fix service backlogs on Amtrak's higher speed rail line.
Here's what's in Biden's infrastructure proposal

The link is the bill itself

$115 billion on accelerated road and bridge repairs
$20 billion for “vision zero” and other anti-auto programs
$85 billion for mass transit
$80 billion for Amtrak’s backlog and expansion of Amtrak service
$174 billion supporting electric vehicle manufacturers
$25 billion on airports
$17 billion on inland waterways
$104 billion undesignated by the bill

I would argue that the lines 2,3 and 4 fit my description. The $80B to Amtrak will mostly be used on building new Hudson River Tunnels.

Sure, but that's 'only' $185B. That's far from "most of it is filled with..." as you said.

(04-01-2021 06:59 PM)Fo Shizzle Wrote:  When all the damn potholes are filled and we can cruise along unfettered on our highways...then you can figure out other stuff to spend money on. Daily travel impacts more Americans than anything. Im perfectly fine with spending money on the road infrastructures.

Don't know what happens in your area, but around here all they do is throw some asphalt in the holes....and in a couple weeks, the damned hole is right back...along with tar and stones being thrown on your car as they never pack that **** down.

(04-01-2021 10:16 AM)Redwingtom Wrote:  

(03-30-2021 02:58 PM)bearcat65 Wrote:  Highway improvement yes but high speed rail has for the most part failed whenever attempted in the US.

Where in the US do we currently have high speed rail? The only thing that comes close is Amtrak's Acela Express that covers like 1 route through several cities, but that's only considered higher-speed rail and only covers a few areas with that higher speed.

Hard to say it has failed when we've never actually built it.

A nationwide HSR system would be pointless as it would be slower than flying and magnitudes more expensive. Just look at the California High Speed Rail construction and its inflated costs.

(04-02-2021 10:17 AM)vandiver49 Wrote:  

(04-01-2021 10:16 AM)Redwingtom Wrote:  

(03-30-2021 02:58 PM)bearcat65 Wrote:  Highway improvement yes but high speed rail has for the most part failed whenever attempted in the US.

Where in the US do we currently have high speed rail? The only thing that comes close is Amtrak's Acela Express that covers like 1 route through several cities, but that's only considered higher-speed rail and only covers a few areas with that higher speed.

Hard to say it has failed when we've never actually built it.

A nationwide HSR system would be pointless as it would be slower than flying and magnitudes more expensive. Just look at the California High Speed Rail construction and its inflated costs.

While all that may be true, my only point is that we don't have any high-speed rail nor have we really tried to implement one outside of CA and the higher speed rail from Amtrak on the East coast. So you really can't say we've tried it and its failed.

(04-01-2021 10:16 AM)Redwingtom Wrote:  

(03-30-2021 02:58 PM)bearcat65 Wrote:  Highway improvement yes but high speed rail has for the most part failed whenever attempted in the US.

Where in the US do we currently have high speed rail? The only thing that comes close is Amtrak's Acela Express that covers like 1 route through several cities, but that's only considered higher-speed rail and only covers a few areas with that higher speed.
Hard to say it has failed when we've never actually built it.

"HSR" in the USA has largely failed because everywhere tried it has become a typical bloated government bureaucracy with a buttload of money going to high-priced consultants to design some new technology instead of borrowing what works elsewhere and a ton of government bureaucrats sitting on their butts instead of laying track and buying rolling stock.

Comparing what passes for "high speed rail" in the USA with something like the Eurostar or Shinkansen in Japan is like comparing hitchhiking to space travel. I read something the other day that said that for the year 2020 the total late time for all Shinkansens nationally was 11 minutes. If the Japanese can do it, we can do it.

If you can leave New York at 8 am, be in Chicago for a lunch meeting, and back in New York by 7 pm, and you can use your phone and the Internet the whole time you are traveling (and all of that with total reliability) that strikes me as a more attractive way for a lot of business travel than flying.

(03-30-2021 02:20 PM)THE NC Herd Fan Wrote:  What's scary Obama's 2012 Shovel ready $1trillion got very little to show for it. Other than $4 Trillion of spending that NEVER goes away what will this infrastructure spend give us?

That's because like Obama, the "shovel ready" jobs were bullsh*t. As far as what this new "infrastructure spend" will give us, it'll give us higher taxes and living expenses, thereby reducing net take home. It'll give us inflation, reducing net take home pay. And it'll saddle our children and grandchildren with even more debt than they already will carry.

(04-02-2021 11:59 AM)No2rdame Wrote:  

(03-30-2021 02:20 PM)THE NC Herd Fan Wrote:  What's scary Obama's 2012 Shovel ready $1trillion got very little to show for it. Other than $4 Trillion of spending that NEVER goes away what will this infrastructure spend give us?

That's because like Obama, the "shovel ready" jobs were bullsh*t. As far as what this new "infrastructure spend" will give us, it'll give us higher taxes and living expenses, thereby reducing net take home. It'll give us inflation, reducing net take home pay. And it'll saddle our children and grandchildren with even more debt than they already will carry.

Glad to know that debt matters once again now that trump is out of office!

(04-02-2021 12:02 PM)Redwingtom Wrote:  

(04-02-2021 11:59 AM)No2rdame Wrote:  

(03-30-2021 02:20 PM)THE NC Herd Fan Wrote:  What's scary Obama's 2012 Shovel ready $1trillion got very little to show for it. Other than $4 Trillion of spending that NEVER goes away what will this infrastructure spend give us?

That's because like Obama, the "shovel ready" jobs were bullsh*t. As far as what this new "infrastructure spend" will give us, it'll give us higher taxes and living expenses, thereby reducing net take home. It'll give us inflation, reducing net take home pay. And it'll saddle our children and grandchildren with even more debt than they already will carry.

Glad to know that debt matters once again now that trump is out of office!

How many trillions did Trump dig us into within the first 3 months of his presidency? How much more in taxes did he expect us all to pay for his pet projects? Try again next time, troll.

(04-02-2021 12:02 PM)Redwingtom Wrote:  

(04-02-2021 11:59 AM)No2rdame Wrote:  

(03-30-2021 02:20 PM)THE NC Herd Fan Wrote:  What's scary Obama's 2012 Shovel ready $1trillion got very little to show for it. Other than $4 Trillion of spending that NEVER goes away what will this infrastructure spend give us?

That's because like Obama, the "shovel ready" jobs were bullsh*t. As far as what this new "infrastructure spend" will give us, it'll give us higher taxes and living expenses, thereby reducing net take home. It'll give us inflation, reducing net take home pay. And it'll saddle our children and grandchildren with even more debt than they already will carry.

Glad to know that debt matters once again now that trump is out of office!

(04-02-2021 12:05 PM)No2rdame Wrote:  

(04-02-2021 12:02 PM)Redwingtom Wrote:  

(04-02-2021 11:59 AM)No2rdame Wrote:  

(03-30-2021 02:20 PM)THE NC Herd Fan Wrote:  What's scary Obama's 2012 Shovel ready $1trillion got very little to show for it. Other than $4 Trillion of spending that NEVER goes away what will this infrastructure spend give us?

That's because like Obama, the "shovel ready" jobs were bullsh*t. As far as what this new "infrastructure spend" will give us, it'll give us higher taxes and living expenses, thereby reducing net take home. It'll give us inflation, reducing net take home pay. And it'll saddle our children and grandchildren with even more debt than they already will carry.

Glad to know that debt matters once again now that trump is out of office!

How many trillions did Trump dig us into within the first 3 months of his presidency? How much more in taxes did he expect us all to pay for his pet projects? Try again next time, troll.

And?

Apples and oranges. trump had a good economy handed to him with no pandemic.

And his tax cut that was passed in his first year in office blew a gaping hole in the debt and deficit.

Regardless, if you're going to pretend that somehow republicans have cut spending, just delete your ******* account.

(04-02-2021 12:42 PM)Redwingtom Wrote:  And his tax cut that was passed in his first year in office blew a gaping hole in the debt and deficit.

The gaping hole was blown into it by the legacy programs handed to him by Obama, I can provide proof if you like.

The impact of Trump's tax cuts was minor compared to that.

(04-02-2021 10:38 AM)Redwingtom Wrote:  

(04-02-2021 10:17 AM)vandiver49 Wrote:  

(04-01-2021 10:16 AM)Redwingtom Wrote:  

(03-30-2021 02:58 PM)bearcat65 Wrote:  Highway improvement yes but high speed rail has for the most part failed whenever attempted in the US.

Where in the US do we currently have high speed rail? The only thing that comes close is Amtrak's Acela Express that covers like 1 route through several cities, but that's only considered higher-speed rail and only covers a few areas with that higher speed.

Hard to say it has failed when we've never actually built it.

A nationwide HSR system would be pointless as it would be slower than flying and magnitudes more expensive. Just look at the California High Speed Rail construction and its inflated costs.

While all that may be true, my only point is that we don't have any high-speed rail nor have we really tried to implement one outside of CA and the higher speed rail from Amtrak on the East coast. So you really can't say we've tried it and its failed.

Understood.

(04-02-2021 10:48 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  "HSR" in the USA has largely failed because everywhere tried it has become a typical bloated government bureaucracy with a buttload of money going to high-priced consultants to design some new technology instead of borrowing what works elsewhere and a ton of government bureaucrats sitting on their butts instead of laying track and buying rolling stock.

Comparing what passes for "high speed rail" in the USA with something like the Eurostar or Shinkansen in Japan is like comparing hitchhiking to space travel. I read something the other day that said that for the year 2020 the total late time for all Shinkansens nationally was 11 minutes. If the Japanese can do it, we can do it.

If you can leave New York at 8 am, be in Chicago for a lunch meeting, and back in New York by 7 pm, and you can use your phone and the Internet the whole time you are traveling (and all of that with total reliability) that strikes me as a more attractive way for a lot of business travel than flying.

Even if money were no object, we still couldn't do the trip you have in bold. Because every representative along the proposed route is going to want the train to in their city, slowing down the train. Even if you built express tracks, cities like Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Columbus and Cleveland and Gary would say they are large enough to warrant an express stop.

(04-02-2021 01:23 PM)vandiver49 Wrote:  Even if money were no object, we still couldn't do the trip you have in bold. Because every representative along the proposed route is going to want the train to in their city, slowing down the train. Even if you built express tracks, cities like Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Columbus and Cleveland and Gary would say they are large enough to warrant an express stop.

Which is exactly why our current sad version of "high speed rail" sucks." It needs to be done by some entity that doesn't have to kiss congress's butts for every nickel.

Psaki Lets the Truth Slip Out About Biden's Infrastructure Bill
https://rumble.com/vf9ovd-psaki-lets-the...p&mc=56yab

Quote:President Joe Biden's $2.25 trillion infrastructure plan includes funding to help the Pentagon go green.

The proposed plan targets $180 billion toward emerging technologies, including investments in environmental programs at the Defense Department.

Among the items included was funding for the use of renewable energy instead of fossil fuels for military vehicles, and mandating all non-combat vehicles be electric by 2030.

The Biden administration considers climate change a top priority, and the Pentagon, the world's single largest energy consumer, will play a key role.

"Moving off fossil fuels into renewables will have first just the direct effect of reducing the carbon footprint dramatically," Ray Mabus, a former Navy secretary and climate change advocate, told Politico.

"Where the military goes, the civilian world often follows," he added, noting that electric vehicles "could catalyze an industry that will have those impacts more widely."

The effort to combat climate change must compete with other top Pentagon priorities — modernizing the nuclear triad, developing new technologies (e.g. artificial intelligence, hypersonic weapons) — amid a flat defense budget.

Critics of Biden’s plan told The Washington Free Beacon in November that leaning hard into green policies could harm a national security already facing issues. One example: simulations project U.S. forces losing in the event China invades Taiwan.

Biden's proposed plan also would invest billions into the China-dominated technology of semiconductors, used in advanced military equipment.

Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., vice ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, said the administration should prioritize the current strength of the Defense Department instead of environmental changes.

"We need to get more out of our dollar than the Chinese get out of their yuan or the Russians get out of their ruble," Wittman said. "If we have an astronomical increase in costs, we need to think twice about those efforts. ... I don't think that we should do things that sacrifice our ability to counter threats out there solely at the expense of environmental issues."

Republicans previously attacked the Navy’s first attempt at transitioning to renewable energy — led by Mabus — by incorporating biofuel into the fleet, a plan that raised costs at the expense of readiness.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin established a Climate Working Group in March to coordinate the Pentagon response to climate change.

"Climate change presents a growing threat to U.S. national security interests and defense objectives,” Austin wrote. "The department will act immediately to include the security implications of climate change in our risk analyses, strategy development and planning guidance."

The effort to combat climate change must compete with other top Pentagon priorities amid flat defense budgets. Modernizing the nuclear triad, and developing new technologies ranging from artificial intelligence to hypersonic weapons, are other such concerns.

A spokesperson for Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, told Politico climate programs distract from the military's "core mission."

"Sen. Cruz believes the Pentagon's job is to be big enough to deter America’s enemies and adversaries, and to be strong enough to take necessary and successful military action if deterrence fails," Cruz spokesperson Jessica Skaggs said. "Allowing climate alarmists and Green New Deal enthusiasts to undermine or distract from that core mission is the height of irresponsibility and endangers the safety and lives of Americans."

The Defense Department is implementing other changes, too.

Trump-era policies that largely banned transgender people from serving in the military will be replaced with new rules offering them wider access to medical care and assistance with gender transition, defense officials told The Associated Press.

Transgender people who meet military standards will be allowed to enlist and serve openly in their self-identified gender. They will be able to get medically necessary transition-related care authorized by law, said the officials.

Link

Quote:Chinese state media on Friday heckled President Joe Biden’s massive “infrastructure” spending proposal because the $2 trillion plan is supposedly “anti-China” in its outlook – meaning Biden has been selling the plan by stressing the importance of competing with China.

China’s state-run Global Times jeered that no U.S. administration could handle infrastructure projects as well as authoritarian China, where “the incentive to invest is strong and the general public is very supportive.”

The Global Times suggested Americans try learning some lessons from superior China instead of scapegoating it for alleged American failures and daydreaming about competing with it:

The US now has China everywhere in its mind with regard to its domestic policy, attaching labels of national security randomly, and blaming China for any industrial imbalance in the US. Apart from instigating nationalism, this would do little to solve the problem. Over time, the US will not only be down with an anti-China syndrome and strike at anything Chinese, but will also only be able to make its policy with anti-China elements. This will lead to the misdirection of its goal time and again and cause it lose its way in development.

The US should force itself to forget about China more often. What the US needs to do is struggling with itself. It has been more than a decade since it has called for the construction of the high-speed railway. Why hasn’t a single kilometer been built? What does this inefficiency have to do with China? Trump overturned many of Obama’s policies and now Biden overturned Trump’s policies. Is this what China seduced the US to do?

It is quite impressive that Washington is beginning to value some important lessons from China. Conflict is also a way to learn from each other. China’s key experience is to mind its own work well. Biden’s determination to improve infrastructure and increase investment in technology seems to have taken something from China’s direction. We hope that the US could adhere to this idea. It is the right way forward.

Another Global Times editorial said, “Chinese enterprises, with rich experience and strong ability,” are willing to participate in Biden’s infrastructure blowout – unless the Biden administration foolishly excludes them:

The infrastructure plan involves many sectors, but Chinese firms may have opportunities only in certain traditional infrastructure projects such as bridges, highways, and ports due to US’ current China policy, Gao Lingyun, an expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing who closely follows China-US trade relations, told the Global Times on Thursday.

“Chinese companies’ participation in the US has been influenced by the tense bilateral relationship over the past few years. They have encountered many obstacles and problems,” a wind power industry practitioner who used to work as manager at Chinese wind power enterprise Guodian United Power Technology Co, told the Global Times on Thursday, on the condition of anonymity. In the past few years, both United Power and Beijing Goldwind Science & Creation Windpower Equipment Co had projects in the US.

[…]

Apart from power, Gao added that in some high-tech sectors, such as the construction of 5G and 6G facilities, Chinese firms, even with fairly competitive strength that could save both money and time more effectively than their US counterparts, would be ruled out from the beginning.

The Global Times quoted Chinese analysts who said the U.S. is “underinvesting and overconsuming, as can be seen from its trade deficit,” and doubted any level of infrastructure enhancement would be enough to woo foreign investors back to the United States because America’s manufacturing sector has been “dormant” for too long.

These Chinese observers also thought the massive corporate tax hikes threatened by the Biden administration “sound horrifying for enterprises and affluent people,” who are “likely to transfer their wealth overseas to cities like China’s Shanghai or Hong Kong” to avoid Biden’s tax grabs.

Link

Quote:Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that he was working to include “human infrastructure” into President Joe Biden’s infrastructure package.

Anchor Jake Tapper said, “So you think that things that one could argue are important but not necessarily a part of an infrastructure package such as dealing with college debt? You think that that should be a part of the bill?”

Sanders said, “Well, you know, it depends on what you call infrastructure. Roads and bridges and tunnels are infrastructure. I think many of us see a crisis in human infrastructure. When working-class families can’t find good quality affordable child care, that’s human infrastructure.”

He continued, “One of the areas that I am working on right now is the need to expand Medicare in order to provide dental care and hearing aids and eye glasses for millions and millions of seniors who need these services but can’t afford it. Is that infrastructure? I think it is. Look, Jake, the truth is, in so many ways, we are behind many other countries throughout the world in providing for working families and the elderly and the children. And I think now is the time to begin addressing our physical infrastructure and our human infrastructure. I want to see that happen as soon as possible.”

Link

(04-02-2021 10:38 AM)Redwingtom Wrote:  

(04-02-2021 10:17 AM)vandiver49 Wrote:  

(04-01-2021 10:16 AM)Redwingtom Wrote:  

(03-30-2021 02:58 PM)bearcat65 Wrote:  Highway improvement yes but high speed rail has for the most part failed whenever attempted in the US.

Where in the US do we currently have high speed rail? The only thing that comes close is Amtrak's Acela Express that covers like 1 route through several cities, but that's only considered higher-speed rail and only covers a few areas with that higher speed.

Hard to say it has failed when we've never actually built it.

A nationwide HSR system would be pointless as it would be slower than flying and magnitudes more expensive. Just look at the California High Speed Rail construction and its inflated costs.

While all that may be true, my only point is that we don't have any high-speed rail nor have we really tried to implement one outside of CA and the higher speed rail from Amtrak on the East coast. So you really can't say we've tried it and its failed.

That covers what, 70% of the US population and metro areas? I'd say that qualifies as trying it.

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