Obama: Stimulus transportation projects ‘under budget,’ ‘ahead of schedule.’
By on Apr 13th, 2009 at 11:57 am
Obama: Stimulus transportation projects ‘under budget,’ ‘ahead of schedule.’
Today, President Obama and Vice President Biden will be speaking at the Transportation Department along with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood to celebrate the 2,000th transportation project funded by the stimulus package. “Just 41 days ago we announced funding for the first transportation project,” Obama said, according to his prepared remarks. “I am proud to utter the two rarest phrases in the English language — projects are being approved ahead of schedule, and they are coming in under budget.” Administration officials say that billions in road and bridge money is going “farther” and being used “faster” than expected.
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Kinda disproves the Republican motto: “government doesn’t work, put us in charge and we’ll prove it!”
It’s not a question of big govt vs small govt, it’s a question of GOOD govt vs BAD.
April 13th, 2009 at 12:02 pmSoon the economy will be booming and the wing nuts will cry. Constructing bridges and roads leads to great economic booms! I trust Obama hes a good man.
April 13th, 2009 at 12:06 pmWhen you put people who have a fundamental belief that government can’t do anything right (Republicans) in charge of the government, you can’t be surprised when government does everything wrong. When you put people who have a fundamental belief that a competent government can do incredible things that the private sector can’t (Democrats) in charge of government, you can’t be surprised when the government exceeds expectations. What will all those Republicans who said the plan would be wasteful and just create more government say now, after 41 days and 2000 new projects (approximately 50 projects a day)?
April 13th, 2009 at 12:08 pmSure hope this turns to to be true over the long run.
April 13th, 2009 at 12:09 pmHey teabaggers…when your down there don’t forget my taint!
April 13th, 2009 at 12:11 pmWhich country, ours, Iraq or Afghanistan?
April 13th, 2009 at 12:13 pmThis is certainly good news, and good news is welcome these days.
Wonder how the trolls and the wingnuts are going to spin this?
April 13th, 2009 at 12:13 pm“projects are being approved ahead of schedule, and they are coming in under budget.”
– - Carnak, The Magnificent’s question: “What is a phrase Bush could never say about Iraq?”
April 13th, 2009 at 12:14 pmScraby Crab Says:
Soon the economy will be booming and the wing nuts will cry. Constructing bridges and roads leads to great economic booms! I trust Obama hes a good man.
April 13th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
__________
Piss off, Trajan. You’re not fooling anyone.
April 13th, 2009 at 12:17 pmIt is very easy to be underbudget and ahead of schedule when you estimate costs to high on purpose. Give them an unlimited amount of time to build something, you’ll always be ahead of schedule.
April 13th, 2009 at 12:18 pmToo bad so many cowards in congress cut a lot of infrastructure money from the original bill.
April 13th, 2009 at 12:18 pmStampede88 Says:
It is very easy to be underbudget and ahead of schedule when you estimate costs to high on purpose. Give them an unlimited amount of time to build something, you’ll always be ahead of schedule.
April 13th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
____________
Yeah, true. It’s a good thing that neither of these tricks are happening.
April 13th, 2009 at 12:19 pmJust a little bit better than tax cuts for the rich, don’t you think?
April 13th, 2009 at 12:20 pmOn a lighter note….maybe the Tea-baggers can celebrate this along with an improving economy and the Pirate rescue when they are spilling their load later this week.
P.S. Limbaugh is going nutzoid (again) trying to figure out a way to criticize Obama on the Pirate issue.
April 13th, 2009 at 12:21 pmGrasshopper,
Limbaugh would have been fine if the pirates had been killed by Cheney’s assasination squad.
April 13th, 2009 at 12:23 pmI am really glad to hear this but I have been hit by a barrage of venom lately from repugs saying to me ” it is not working, where is the evidence?” The average citizen is not seeing any effects of the stimulus and are questioning the price tag. I think they thought there would be notices in the paper calling for hundreds of jobs to be filled…..ones they could apply for having just been laid off and some fired.
April 13th, 2009 at 12:24 pmI really don’t have a good answer for this, can anyone help me? We need to do a better job of explaining the program.
President Obama X Hussein is building the trains to take us to liberal concentration camps where we’ll be forced to wear patchouli perfume, earth tone clothes made from hemp and given sensitivity training and forced to eat organic foods.
Today’s GOP, defending themselves from the French surrendercrats with tea-bags, tears and shrill rhetoric.
-GSD
April 13th, 2009 at 12:26 pmchiroptera,
I don’t get your hostility. I am not trajan who you refer to me as. I don’t know this person nor do I care too. You are just mad because you can’t prove Hamas and Hezbolla are corrupt groups. You are a Zionist posing as a progressive.
I’ll just ignore you and focus instead on this subject. Obama is making sure the government is responsible. I am proud he is my president.
April 13th, 2009 at 12:27 pmpax – they’d still be lying if unemployment dropped to 3% next week. those people can’t see anything with their heads stuffed in the sand, and that’s exactly where they will stay.
April 13th, 2009 at 12:27 pmmisscoleopteramolly Says:
This is certainly good news, and good news is welcome these days.
Wonder how the trolls and the wingnuts are going to spin this?
Just more evidence that Obama is pushing us faster and faster toward socialism!
April 13th, 2009 at 12:27 pmAllow me to spin this for Republicans:
1) Stimulus money is being spent on overpriced and delayed projects, costing the average American two to three times what they would have cost if funded by the state.
2) Banks are failing at 4 times the pace they did under any previous Republican President and all of them are posting stunning losses for the quarter.
3) Illegal Aliens are taking the jobs you recently lost and are working for less than minimum wage and no health benefits because they get treated for free under Obama.
4) The recession, which started under Obama, is costing 10 times as many job losses as seen under Bush.
This is how you spin things as a Republican. Lies are the same as truth to 50% of Americans. Especially when the only place they look for the truth is on FOX news.
BTW, defense spending is down and income taxes are up under Obama. There is no need to actually tell anyone the truth when lies work much better and faster.
April 13th, 2009 at 12:30 pmScraby Crab Says:
chiroptera,
I don’t get your hostility. I am not trajan who you refer to me as. I don’t know this person nor do I care too.
April 13th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
____________
Piss off, Trajan. You’re not fooling anyone.
April 13th, 2009 at 12:30 pmwell, obviously, competent government is a liberal plot to turn us all into fascist global warmers that are always gay and getting abortions while outlawing guns and bibles!
/snark
April 13th, 2009 at 12:31 pmchiroptera ,
April 13th, 2009 at 12:37 pmName call you want. It’s obvious I struck a nerve. You are a Republican mole.
pax Says
April 13th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
I really don’t have a good answer for this, can anyone help me? We need to do a better job of explaining the program.
___________________________________________________________
I think the person who has explained this program the best is President Obama himself. He has repeatedly said that our economy resembles an ocean liner more than a small speedboat, and that changes don’t happen overnight. Anybody with an ounce of common sense can see this. I recommend reading the transcript from his March 24 press conference, which puts forth the information you’re looking for:
http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2009/03/president_obamas_press_confere.html
Most of the people who are crying about how we’re not seeing instant results are people who aren’t paying attention to what Obama says — they’re just paying attention to what the wingnut pundits are saying.
April 13th, 2009 at 12:38 pmRantingTommy Says:
well, obviously, competent government is a liberal plot to turn us all into fascist global warmers that are always gay and getting abortions while outlawing guns and bibles!
Snark or not, this is just why Limbaugh was hoping the President would fail. If the administration succeeds in cleaning up this mess, Americans might start realizing that government is not the problem, regardless of what St. Ronnie convinced many to be true. Americans might start believing in the power of good government once again, and that would be to wingnuts like sunlight to a vampire.
April 13th, 2009 at 12:43 pmOops, messed up the link. but you get it.
April 13th, 2009 at 12:43 pmHere, from the CNN article…
Then, from the MDOT site itself.
So, the ahead of schedule project started in 2005, and as a frequent visitor of said area, its not close to being done next month by next month when it says it will be.
Whats next?
April 13th, 2009 at 12:44 pmmisscoleopteramolly Says:
Most of the people who are crying about how we’re not seeing instant results are people who aren’t paying attention to what Obama says — they’re just paying attention to what the wingnut pundits are saying.
__________
Or they ARE wingnut “pundits” seeing what they desperately want to see.
April 13th, 2009 at 12:46 pmStampede88 Says:
So, the ahead of schedule project started in 2005, and as a frequent visitor of said area, its not close to being done next month by next month when it says it will be.
_________
You are kidding, right? 2005? Who was in power in 2005?
How nice of you to use an example of a project the BOTCH ADMINISTRATION couldn’t manage correctly.
You’re funny… but not in a way that’s flattering to you.
April 13th, 2009 at 12:48 pmStampede88 Says:
It is very easy to be underbudget and ahead of schedule when you estimate costs to high on purpose. Give them an unlimited amount of time to build something, you’ll always be ahead of schedule.
____________
Prolly as easy as overbudgeting and making the extra money “disappear”…
Saaaay… did they EVER find that missing NINE BILLION DOLLARS in Iraq?
Did they even LOOK FOR IT?
April 13th, 2009 at 12:50 pmSchindler – With those kinds of chops, you’re likely to get a call from Mike Steele soon, looking to pull you up to the Big Show.
April 13th, 2009 at 12:52 pmTRoHS, You miss the point, the project is not ahead of schedule, and over budget, but it is highlighted in the CNN article used to show these projects as the opposite.
And, if the project was started in 2005, why is it receiving stimulus money to be completed? It was scheduled to be complete next month, but will not be. So, explain to me how that is underbudget and ahead of schedule.
April 13th, 2009 at 12:53 pmOh this is sooooo going to send the Anti-amercian ReichWingers heads spinning in a hissy fit.
Can’t wait to see how they are going to spin this news.
April 13th, 2009 at 12:56 pmif they can’t spin it, they’ll deny it
April 13th, 2009 at 1:02 pmStampede88 Says:
“I have one example that kind of sort of proves my point, if you don’t examine it too closely. I posit that this one, slightly flawed, example is representative of the entire nation’s projects.”
Dude, mam, whatever….. one item is a representative sample?
Oh, my… here we go again…..
Let me posit this, then…. I can identify for you two (count ‘em TWO) Elected Republican officials guilty of immoral sexual acts while in office. By that standard, than every single Republican in the country is an immoral sexual deviant. Right? (This uses the SAME reasoning that YOU expect US to believe, but with 200% the evidence, and the evidence would be much more appropos to the conclusion).
I’ll leave the others to explain, yet again, should they choose, WHY your example is flawed (hint: started and planned and funded in 2005 under a different president).
April 13th, 2009 at 1:06 pmStampede,
From all links, it is not clear the history or the trajectory of I-94. Was the project stopped? Did it lose fedaral funding and delayed? Was it indeed re-started (from scratch, from past plans, etc.) by the stimulus package and counted as a new project? Has the MDOT page been updated recently?
What I’m saying is that you do not have enough details to have much more than an implication. We thank you for your concern in this huge expose you are attempting, but you’ll need a little bit more. Otherwise, FreeRepublic is thataways…
April 13th, 2009 at 1:10 pmPax,
Your concern is noted as well. I would suggest to your Republican friends that they their man had 8 years to dismantle a government’s effectiveness, and that jobs are already created by Obama’s policies and will continue to do so, but this economy or the global economy will not be fixed in a matter of months. If they still complain, I would suggest that they please study basic economics, because this situation is complex, and to oversimplify the multi-faceted nature of the problem- from unemployment to financial regulations is probably more due to anxiety from the recession. Or possibly partisan stupidity and stubborness, take your pick.
April 13th, 2009 at 1:16 pmActually, I think one of the links very clearly shows aneast-west trajectory.
:P
April 13th, 2009 at 1:17 pmtouche wags :)
April 13th, 2009 at 1:17 pmI simply used the one example that CNN used as their proof to these projects being ahead and under. If CNN, or the current administration had given a comprehensive list of these projects that are as such, I would be happy to go down that list and disprove each one as such. But, they used one example, so I disproved it.
April 13th, 2009 at 1:19 pmStampede/Sherlock:
You didn’t disprove it. There are not enough details known to make that claim.
Talk it up at the next tea party.
April 13th, 2009 at 1:19 pmStampede88 Says
April 13th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
So, the ahead of schedule project started in 2005, and as a frequent visitor of said area, its not close to being done next month by next month when it says it will be.
___________________________________________________________
Ah, I asked how the wingnuts would spin this. Apparently, the answer is to employ the old trick of finding a project that isn’t being completed ahead or schedule or under budget and use this as some kind of evidence to discredit the entire claim. (Of course, this would have more teeth if it was a project not started under the Bush regime.)
Kind of falls into the category of “it snowed last January, so this discredits anything ever said about global warming.”
April 13th, 2009 at 1:25 pmIf CNN used one example, then they are just as guilty of pseudoreasoning as you are here. One example is not representative of a group — at least not as a supportive premise to a conclusion relying on that sample being representative, UNLESS you can prove that that one exapmle IS representative (which, generally, requires more examples….)
April 13th, 2009 at 1:27 pmHere in S.C. the road work never ends, even with all the unemployment. I really wish this would stop. All they ever do is add lanes and lanes and more lanes. About six miles from here theres a freeway thats 15 lanes wide. And it’s still full almost all the time. The more lanes you build the more they fill. It has always been that way here.
What we need are more rail lines, light, high speed, whatever, the road projects are just rediculous. I was looking for a new warehouse the other day and because of all the road work you have to turn this way or that, no u-turns to see areas you were just turned away from.
I told my wife, I think that’s our (hometowns) road department. It looks like they got lost and just decided to dig here.
Please, let’s get some rail and subways while we’re at it.
o.k. o.k. I’m all for the stimulus. We just need to build alternate means of transportation.
April 13th, 2009 at 1:28 pmWhich is normal, since studies show that adding lanes to highways merely increases the traffic said lanes were intended to alleviate.
April 13th, 2009 at 1:45 pmwags camponotus saundersi,
Which is why I think we need more rail. If anyone else has better ideas I’ll listen.
April 13th, 2009 at 1:48 pmTransportation isn’t the sole issue; we need a holistic approach. Our growth patterns are out of control, our existing transit underfunded and often poorly planned and our populace generally resistant to structural change.
April 13th, 2009 at 1:59 pmFor someone who works in this sector of employment, particulary in the state of NJ, it’s great to see money used for the number one form of transportation that Americans use, our roadways.
As we’ve all seen, old, unsatisfactory, and unmaintained infrastructure costs lives, jobs, as well as money. While I won’t beleive all I read/hear about the timeliness of the use of the funding and the project deadline projections, I will beleive that this money is well spent.
It is no easy task to get money into the pockets of agencies which wish to use it for good rather than prop up previous years shortcomings. It is not often that money goes to projects which have been “needed” for the past century. From that little local road that you have to detour around because a bridge is out, or that intersection you have to remember to dodge the pothole at, these monies are hopefully helping you and our local transportation sector.
It is these roads and bridges we use on a daily basis that allows us to reach our jobs and to travel freely throughout our borders to be some of the most traveleed peoples of the world.
April 13th, 2009 at 2:05 pmWill this get as much coverage as Gephardt’s criticism? Or as the criticism of Obama’s handling of Somalia?
Obama managed the Somalia event with perfection – and because he did, the repugs now think he is taking too much credit. (he actually credited the captain, the crew and the military, nothing for himself)
Repugs would have preferred to battle at sea. Then they could blame Obama for starting it.
April 13th, 2009 at 2:07 pmYou won’t hear that on Fox….they apparently went to commercial just as the President made that news…I just had to do my part to see how the channel is trying so hard to manipulate its viewership!
April 13th, 2009 at 2:22 pm16. Pax,
For one thing, look at the stock market.
http://finance.yahoo.com/ and click on the Dow and graph it out from 1990 to date. Admittedly, the Dow looks only at a select group of some of the biggest companies. But also note that the big boys are also some of the most troubled industries (such as GM). The Dow went up and down under Bush and almost looked like it might not loose much under Bush, then it was in freefall from about last September till 5 weeks ago and has gained for the last 5 weeks.
Do the same for S+P where you can look at the 500 or selected subgroups.
NASDAQ – same thing. and NASDAQ includes a lot of funds that aren’t as prominent.
April 13th, 2009 at 2:23 pmBut… but… capital gains taxes… umm, Drill Baby Drill!
April 13th, 2009 at 2:53 pmAnd the stocks have been turning around for over a month now, lendings starting to loosen up and signs of success are already on the horizon.
And President Obama’s been in office for less than 90 days.
He’s certainly beginning to exceed my expectations for dealing with this financial crisis as he’s clearly made a huge dent in turning things around.
Yet the republicans want to stage “protests” against him.
:|
Go figger.
April 13th, 2009 at 3:43 pmPresident Obama has been in office less than 3 months. Already he has started a major economic recovery, started plans for getting out of Iraq, represented us well at global conferences, etc.
Yet, he is still criticized for what he hasn’t done, yet.
Any chance that folks will realize that 1) you can’t do everything in 1 day and 2) he has to pick his priorities for what happens 1st vs. what happens later ?
April 13th, 2009 at 6:17 pm.
Transportation Projects +1
Rule of law ………….0
.
April 14th, 2009 at 1:41 amI am hardly surprised by this news. The cost estimates were likely high because they were probably estimated using the higher fuel prices of last year. Economic downturn has also resulted in declining prices in some construction materials. And they should be approved faster as they target “shovel ready” projects – projects whose designs are completed and simply need funding for state and local transportation departments to go out for bid.
But I guess if it makes you feel better stating the obvious and giving yourself a pat on the back why not go ahead and do it.
April 14th, 2009 at 2:49 amOK Pat obviously senile dementia has set in. Time to see the nice young men that will need to take care of you soon.burun estetigi rent a car arac kiralama
April 18th, 2009 at 5:31 amsac ekimi
Ahead of schedule is good because it means the money is getting out there quick.
April 30th, 2009 at 10:34 am