It also goes against the exact auto industry the Big 3 Bailout is trying to save. Remember the talk of the failing of the Big 3 would cost America 5M jobs...

True, this is sausage being made- but not that Transportation has been majorly sliced off, will it make it back in? I think probably not.

Oberstar's assessment is disappointing and probably right on the money. I wonder the good Oberstar could have done in a position like Sec. of Transportation, instead of Re-thug LaHood?

In total agreement that a major push for rail would be an excellent source of jobs. Disappointing- but I'll hold out hope that this sausage will still have some tasty bits.

I'm not understanding why they wouldn't just leave it in at full funding? Who set the $850B ceiling? I know they liked having the symmetry of $550B of spending and $275B in tax cuts, but that's an artificial limit that's been set. Why not add it back in?

Obama has to ween himself off of bipartisanship for the mere sake of bipartisanship. Krugman and others have argued pretty convincingly that tax cuts will have little stimulative effect. Thus, including tax cuts in a stimulus package is pure politics - a way to get some rethugs on board.

You know, as pre-emptive attacks go, this is a pretty good one. There's enough of a public disdain for tax cuts that pretty much anything that got cut to make room for them has a fighting chance of being restored.

Putting together a good transportation stimulus package ain't rocket science. If Obama means what he says about attacking the power of entrenched interests, then he needs to fight for a package that follows these simple rules:

1. No more than 50% of the total for roads and bridges -- and 100% of that should be dedicated to the repair of existing infrastructure. No new road capacity or new bridges to nowhere.

2. Fifty percent or more for rail/transit/bike/ped investments that will give working families the option of getting from Point A to Point B without a car.

These simple rules will create more jobs, reduce household expenses of middle income families, reduce CO2 emissions and keep American energy dollars at home.

The only interests who would oppose this common sense approach are the asphalt lobby, state highway department bureaucrats and stuck-in-the-1950s members of Congress.

Actually, I think the idea is that this package's main goal is economic stimulus, not an infrastructure package. New rail is difficult to plan and build, basically it's taking what is in America a dying industry and trying to revive it.

Don't get me wrong, I think this would be a good and forward-looking thing to do. But it would involve a great deal of red tape, community committees, debate over how and when and where, etc.

Meanwhile, there are thousands of road projects that have been ready to go for a long time, and have been held up because of funding (anyone out there who lives in Chicago can attest to the moonscape that are Chicago roads, someone was mentioning Minnesota, etc. etc.) These things will pump money into people's pockets and companies' balance sheets immediately, and therefore will have a larger immediate effect on the economy.

Usually, I'm against tax cuts and agree that they don't have as stimulative effect...in THEORY and in GENERAL. It's not like I'm disagreeing with Krugman...except for this particular case.

That's because some of these tax cuts adress the specific crisis we're in in a very clever way. There is a provision in the tax code currently that allows businesses to write the last 2 years' worth of losses off of their taxes. The tax cut extends that to 5. With the rash of bankruptcies coming down the pike (Circuit City is just the tip of the iceberg, and 30,000 jobs were lost when they liquidated) I have a feeling that although these cuts might not stimulate the economy, they might keep businesses from being sucked into the black hole of bankruptcy and therefore will keep more jobs.

God I almost sound like a Republican, I know...but its just that sometimes I think people forget that the aim of this plan is not infrastructure building or environmental improvement, but stimulating the economy. People, mostly in good faith, are looking for the best ways to do this.

You guys are talking like rail transit is a matter of moving people. But what about goods? It's environmentally and costwise a lot cheaper to move a lot of goods off trucks onto rail lines for goods moving over a certain distance (I don't recall what the actual mileage is). More goods by rail means less trucks and less air pollution from trucks and reduced costs. That alone makes rail transit look awfully good.

I just hope any new high-speed rail project is not the clusterfuck that the Acela was.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/24/national/24acela.html

Not a good sign of brilliant decisions to come. How am I going to spend my tax refund? Bank it in preparation for paying increased taxes on behalf of banks that were too big to fail, banks I would never have considered using. Shoot, my bank is so small that it doesn't even have ATM services. So, how much will the shipping and handling costs be for taking the money from me so that I can give it back?

Question, how much money can be spent on mass transit within the next 18 months. Right of way procurement takes years.

The economy of the future is going to be based on fiber optics and alternative energy production. The road building is nice, but we really ought to focus on buying things that are actually going to be primary to economic recovery.

The New York City area has plenty of projects that are "shovel ready", and would soak up every dollar in the mass transit section of the proposed infrastructure program, and then some.
The Second Avenue subway project in New York is a perfect example of a project that has been shovel ready...for decades, and several times over. A bond issue specifically devoted to the Second Avenue subway was passed in the 1950s. The authorities diverted the money to other projects. Construction in disparate segments actually began in the 1970s, and stopped during the city's fiscal crisis of that time. When construction came up on the agenda about a decade ago, the MTA (which runs NYC's transit operations) did all the preliminary work over again FROM SCRATCH--all the easements, the titles searches, the utilities which needed to be relocated, everything (probaby a boondoggle). The Second Avenue Subway has actually been on the boards, in one form or another, for literally a century, to replace the former Second and Third Avenue elevated lines. (NYC actually now has scores of miles LESS rapid transit lines than it did in the 1940s, due to demolition during the past decades of elevated rail lines in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx.)
A second example: the underground rail freight tunnel between New Jersey and Brooklyn, championed in recent years by Rep. Jerrold Nadler. This project was actually the original raison d'etre for the formation of the NY/NJ Port Authority in the early 1920s, which went on to build auto bridges and tunnels, the former World Trade Center and on and on, but never realized the original project (which is badly needed, economically, environmentally and to reduce road truck traffic).
Third example: the extension of the subway system from Brooklyn to Staten Island. Construction actually began in the 1920s and then placed on the shelf.
Fourth example: the Long Island Rail Road connection from Brooklyn to lower Manhattan.
Fifth example: a project which has just passed enviromental reviews, additional rail tunnels to supplement the dangerously overused Amtrak and New Jersey Transit tunnels between New Jersey and Manhattan.
The Second Avenue subway project is fully planned and shovels are actually turning, in a dilatory manner. If not literally "shovel ready" tomorrow, the other projects I have mentioned could reach that status relatively soon, not years and years from now.
I am certainly not slighting the many meritorious projects from other parts of the country. I am just pointing out some of the most outstanding (and/or egregious) examples of worthy rail infrastructure projects in just one area of the country which need funding (and without massive federal aid, will probably never be realized).
BTW, I just read that under pressure from Sarkozy's government, the Ile de France region, which contains Paris, has approved eighteen rail and light rail projects to be realized in the next seven years. In the area of light rail and rail, "USA" translateds to "NCD" (no can do).

The tax cut to the middle class was a promise. It must be kept.

As far as weaning Americans from "gas guzzling" cars, that has many solutions. CNG, compressed natural gas cars and hybrid cars that plug into a solar array are two high technology ways. The electric grid needs to be weaned from coal before plug-in electric cars make sense to the environmental needs. Since Obama says he believes in good science rather than ideology, he will pay attention to good scientists and engineers.

BTW, I have used mass transit. Anything else is better.