Obama says, I’ll Build Roads, Runways, Create Jobs and Garner Votes

Republicans are now determined to oppose nearly all of Obama’s economic ideas, bi-partisan cooperation on the transportation projects seems unlikely.

US President Barack Obama made a Labor Day pitch for some US$50B in new road, rail and airport construction projects with a plan that aims to overhaul national infrastructure spending and jump-start job creation, as well as a campaign season punch at the Republicans he accused of obstructing his goals.

In a speech at an annual holiday festival in Milwaukee, Obama fired up a crowd of union members and their families by outlining an ambitious plan to construct 150,000 miles of new roads, a network of high-speed rail lines and what the White House billed as a next-generation airport system that includes 150 miles of new runways.

But at a time when unemployment has climbed to an official rate of 9.6% that belies a much broader epidemic of joblessness, and with the sputtering economy looming as the top issue ahead of midterm congressional elections, employment overshadowed transport as the focus of his speech.

“This will not only create jobs immediately, it’s also going to make our economy hum over the long haul,” Obama said.

An energized Obama, in shirt sleeves and with a massive American flag rippling in the wind nearby, repeatedly drew cheers and applause as he touted the importance of “Union ideas” and the notion that “America cannot have a strong, growing economy without a strong, growing middle class, and the chance for everybody, no matter how humble their beginnings, to join that middle class.” He also repeatedly took jabs at what he described as nay-saying Republicans who “talk about me like a dog.”

The speech, launching into the traditional post-Labor Day period of intensified campaigning, follows a summer of hand-wringing at the White House and Federal Reserve over the persistently ailing jobs market.

Since last week Obama had been promising new proposals on how to stimulate hiring, and the White House said today’s proposals would be part of a larger package Obama will unveil Wednesday and put in place without adding to the budget deficit by working with Congress.

But with Republicans now determined to oppose nearly all Obama economic ideas, bi-partisan cooperation on the transportation projects seemed unlikely.

“We don’t need more government ‘stimulus’ spending,” House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said after Obama spoke. “We need to end Washington Democrats’ out-of-control spending spree, stop their tax hikes, and create jobs by eliminating the job-killing uncertainty that is hampering our small businesses.”

Democrats and many economists, however, say it was the stimulus spending that prevented the recession from turning into a full-blown depression. And Obama, who took his own swing at Boehner as “the man who wants to be speaker”, said it was the investments in new projects that led to the net increase in construction jobs last month, the first growth in construction employment in more than a year.

A report 2 weeks ago from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said last year’s US$787B stimulus program, now assailed by Republicans, has put millions back to work and in Q-2 of 2010 alone was responsible for creating between 1.4 and 3.3M new jobs.

There was as much politics in Mr. Obama’s speech as there was economic policy. —Paul A. Ebeling, Jnr. www.livetradingnews.com

Posted by Shayne Heffernan on Sep 7th, 2010and filed underEquities, Latest News, Markets, USA.You can follow any responses to this entry through theRSS 2.0You can leave a response by filling following comment form or trackback to this entry from your site