Obama Unveils $50 Billion Plan for Infrastructure

Obama unveils $50 billion plan for infrastructure

With congressional elections looming and high unemployment data persisting, President Barack Obama announced on Monday a proposal worth $50 billion to improve roads, railways, and airport runways.

“This will not only create jobs immediately, it's also going to make our economy hum over the long haul,” the President said before union members at a Milwaukee Labor Day rally.

Republicans criticized the infrastructure plan, with House Minority Leader John Boehner saying that the plan is a “doubling down” of the failed $862 billion stimulus package by the White House.

“We don't need more government stimulus spending, we need to end Washington Democrats' out-of-control spending spree,” Boehner said.

The Labor Department released a report last week saying that the unemployment rate slightly worsened to 9.6 percent.

The administration is preparing some programs to ease the grim unemployment situation. President Obama will propose on Wednesday in Cleveland a tax credit extension for business owners who want to invest in research and development.

Obama said that the plan will facilitate the transfer of goods and create construction jobs. The plan includes building or fixing 150,000 miles of road, 4,000 miles of railways, and 150 miles of airport runways.

A new air-traffic control system is also going to be installed to reduce flight delays, while a so-called “infrastructure bank” is going to be created to figure out the best projects to undertake.

The president did not cite any figures, but a White House fact sheet states that there is an “up-front investment” of $50 billion to finance the infrastructure plan.

Posted by EmpoweredNews on Tuesday September 07 2010, 10:57 AM EDT. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, Finance. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0