HOSTAGE SITUATION
The word hostage may be a little dramatic but, there is real drama in shutting down most of the transportation construction in the United States. Confused, well I am too. I can not understand why absolutist wingnut lawmakers would want to eliminate six million jobs when unemployment hovers around ten percent. Don’t get me wrong. As you are probably aware, I feel healthcare reform is and should be one of our highest priorities. It is also of paramount importance to get healthcare reform which actually reforms healthcare. Lawmakers however, have been at this for nine months. It is time to quit deliberating and start legislating.
A few legislators will tell you they have passed a continuing resolution (CR) to fund transportation projects until the complete transportation reauthorization can be passed. What they don’t tell you is the current CR funds transportation for one month at a time. So, in my state, the resulting funding is one-twelfth our normal funding. Our budget which normally approaches one billion dollars is reduced to around 83 million. This is in a world where most construction projects end up around 30 million a piece. Our state department of transportation is faced with funding three projects statewide or a handful of really small projects. No state DOT will take the risk of having to use local monies to fund large projects until Congress fully funds transportation programs.
The effect of a one month CR on states and cities is to stop bidding and constructing projects until they are assured funding in a multi-year transportation bill.
As the left wing insists on a public option and the right wing tries to eliminate it, construction companies everywhere are handing out pink slips. As the right holds out for liability caps for doctors, engineering firms who design transportation projects are going under. As the left tries to eliminate the Medicare Advantage Program and the right continues to tell seniors they are losing their Medicare coverage, materials producers are idling their facilities. Steel, concrete, asphalt and stone producers are sending employees home. Finally, because little federal gas taxes are making their way back to the states, states are considering furloughs and other methods to reduce state staff.
That’s right, we have already paid for road maintenance and improvement projects at the pump. Our money is being held hostage in Washington. We are paying to watch our transportation industries and our bridges crumble.
So as the politicians revel in political one-upmanship, you should be worried about the bridge you travel over every day. Sadly however, that’s not the only thing you could be worried about. Investment banks on Wall Street are busily over extending themselves again. The financial industry and transportation are just the tip of the iceberg. The business of the people grinds to a halt while the wingnuts stymie the debate. It’s become a funny joke to use the Otto von Bismarck quote, “laws are like sausages, it is better not the see them being made.” It is not so funny when people are starving to death waiting on that sausage.