States Learning Democrats “Infrastructure” Bill Seriously Restricts Ability To Build Roads

The people pushing to pass the bill want all the states to focus on building trains and getting people to ride the bus rather than fossil fueled vehicles. You know, those buses and trains Democrats won’t use themselves

Democrats look to crush states’ highway habit

st greta carHouse Democrats are trying to use a massive climate and infrastructure bill to change how Americans get around — by breaking states’ decades-old fondness for building highways.

Legislation the House passed this month is the biggest advance yet in Democrats’ efforts to bake climate policies into transportation, addressing the largest single contributor to the United States’ greenhouse gas output. It would also represent an historic shift away from the roads-first approach to federal transportation spending that has reigned since Dwight Eisenhower created the Interstate Highway System.

But the bill is riling up opposition from two potential allies of the Democrats’ big-spending infrastructure initiatives: state transportation departments and the road-building lobby. That creates an awkward dynamic for supporters of the House bill, which faces a perilous path through the evenly divided Senate.

Critics say the five-year, $549 billion bill would represent one-size-fits-all Washington meddling at its worst.

“There are 50 different states with 50 different sets of transportation challenges. What is right for one may not be right for another,” said Dave Bauer, CEO of the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, which supports many of the bill’s provisions and principles. “It’s really hard to determine that five years at a time from Washington, D.C.” (snip)

The bill, H.R. 3684 (117), would erect new bureaucratic hurdles for states seeking to spend federal money on laying asphalt, while steering them to more climate-friendly options like transit. It also would give cities more power over selecting and funding transportation projects — boosting the leverage of Democratic-led enclaves in red states such as Texas, where Houston is engaged in a high-profile fight with the state’s DOT over a highway expansion local pols don’t want.

Well, hey, state Democrats, perhaps it wasn’t the best of ideas to enable the federal government to have so much power in building highways in those state, and, more importantly funding them. In depending on Los Federales to provide the money, rather than keeping that money in the States themselves, who know better what’s going on. And maybe the cities should consider that the state should have less power and input on the use of buses, as the cities know better. Though, really, in most cities that use buses they do not really need more, and won’t expand their routes except when the cities expand. Most middle class and upper class folks aren’t going to suddenly start using them from the suburbs.

See, it’s not in simply building more highway, like we’re getting with the expansion of I-540 in the southern part of Raleigh and through Garner, creating one big sorta circle. No. It is upkeep of highways. Expanding existing roads to carry more traffic as areas grow. All that federal power isn’t sounding so great now, eh?

House Transportation Chair and bill sponsor Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) said state DOTs have reflexively built highways instead of looking at other alternatives — a habit that needs to change. As a rare exception, he pointed to Virginia’s efforts to expand passenger rail service to combat perennially snarled traffic on Interstate 95.

Now, that might be a good idea, because that traffic stinks, going from just north of Richmond all the way to DC, and sometimes up to Baltimore. It turns my drive from NC to NJ from 7.5 hours to 9. The question is, will people take it?

The Democrats’ bill won’t be able to undo decades of feverish highway building overnight, but its backers say it represents a huge shift in mindset.

The bill, called the INVEST in America Act, would set limits on how states use money from one of the biggest pots of federal highway cash, the National Highway Performance Program, by requiring them to consider whether an “operational improvement or transit project” would be more cost-effective than expanding capacity for single-occupancy vehicles.

Why is it the business of the federal government to change the mindset? They’ve tried to implement a light rail scheme in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area for 20 years, and it keeps going down. The studies show almost no one will ride it. It would be beyond inconvenient for riders. Perhaps states should be making their own decisions. And start keeping more of the money sent to the federal treasury (OK, lots of it is borrowed by Los Federales). It will, though, give cities more power over the use of that money over the states themselves.

“I think the federal government has every right to say look, it’s our money, and we are now in the process of redirecting and transitioning from a 1950s approach to something that more clearly reflects not just the moment, but the future,” Aloisi said.

I do believe it’s the money of the citizens. It’s pretty much long past time to shift taxation to more of that percentage going to the cities and states than the federal government, reduce the power of the Central Government.

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11 Responses to “States Learning Democrats “Infrastructure” Bill Seriously Restricts Ability To Build Roads”

  1. Hairy says:

    Lol
    Teach must I keep reminding you about the fact that it is the rich blue states who send the most money to DC and get the least returned to them
    It are those poorer red states that are on the DC welfare rolls
    Quite frankly instead of combining about DC I would rather hear you say “thank you” instead of always bad mouthing those Dem blue states that financially support our poor cousins
    How about some gratitude Teach!!!!

    • Kye says:

      Everything with you commies is all about money and power, Hairy. That’s all you talk about. You constantly compare the rich Demofascists and their blue states to the working man, the farmer, the rancher and the laborer like there is some crime or low standard for doing the actual work that drives and feeds America. Your rich blue states are only that way because of rich millionaire and billionaire demofascists in big cities sucking the life out of us working people. You brag when you should be ashamed. Notice how those blue assholes who pay for all the welfare price people out of their homes so they have to live on tents and shit in the streets? The balance is so askew between the democrat superrich and the rest of us millions are now unemployed and living in poverty so your big shot donors can make more billions via “Covid”. You are all blood suckers.

      • Elwood P. Dowd says:

        Is Kye advocating much higher taxes on the uber-successful billionaires in NYC, Philly, Boston, Detroit, Chicago, DC, Atlanta, Houston, St. Louis, Phoenix, Tucson, LA, SF, Seattle, Portland, Denver, Baltimore, Omaha…

        Poor baby having his blood sucked by some 650 billionaire libs. You know the answer. We need to revamp our tax, labor, health, trade, bankruptcy, wage, welfare etc policies.

        The Blue States are more productive than Red States, so what’s new?

        If you’re actually ready for a genuine populist revolution, give up your fealty to the Mar-a-Lago Monster and support policies that return political power to the people. Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, Kylie Jenner, Oprah, Tyler Perry, Jay-Z, Spielberg, George Lucas, Mackenzie Scott… are just a few of our billionaire class. Mackenzie Scott made $57 billion for being dumped by Jeff Bezos!!

        US billionaires made an additional $240 billion during the pandemic while working Americans suffered. According to Politico many of these billionaires paid little or no taxes.

        Kye, you can’t hate billionaires AND taxes. And so many billionaires spawn billionaire children! What a coincidence if you surname is Walton or Mars or Koch or Cargill or Busch… Do you think the parents pass down solid work ethics or are the passing down something else?

        For perspective, if you have $1 billion, your family can spend $1 million/year for 1000 years!

        There are over 8 million millionaire families in the US or about 7% of all families. About 7 million families live in poverty. In the richest nation in the history of nations.

        What we libs want is to find a way to make compensation more equitable in the US, that the men and women who work to make the Waltons, Mars, Bezos, Zuckerbergs and another 600+ billionaires so wealthy. Shouldn’t a fair society, in fact the richest in world history, find a way to make the system more equitable?

        Haven’t Dem and Repub elites curried to the rich enough?

    • est1950 says:

      Hairy, I have already refuted this claim once on this website, and refuse to do it again.

      Blue states and red states pay equally and in fact when using 2019 numbers red states pay 761 billion to 739 billion for the Blue states. Now you can point out that there are 10 more red states than blue states but collectively Red states pay more taxes than Blue states.

      It’s a simple fact I presented here about 3 months ago. Hairy is incorrect. Now do red states take in more federal dollars than blue states. Yes, they do. That is because a bulk of Military bases and Highways and railroads are in Red STATES. As for poor red states.

      The poorest states in the union are indeed red states with a large number of blacks and Hispanics in each of those southern states. Your post is racist as you infer giving money to poor red states who use that money to help BLACKS and HISPANICS is charity and inherently wrong.

      So, moving on Hairy…LOL as you say…..Must I remind you that you are in error? Again.

  2. drowningpuppies says:

    Old enough to remember President Trump saying “the Democrats are not after me, they’re after you. I’m just in the way.”

    That’s never been more clear than it is now.

    #BelieveTheLie
    #TrustUs
    Bwaha! Lolgf https://www.thepiratescove.us/wp-content/plugins/wp-monalisa/icons/wpml_cool.gif

  3. Kye says:

    And Hunter just sold another $500,000 “painting” to an undisclosed communist ruler who will get a contract from Junta Joe in the “green energy” sector of the new $3.5 trillion “infrastructure” bill that we working guys in those poor red areas will have to pay for. You’re welcome mutha fuka.

    • Elwood P. Dowd says:

      We thought Kye appreciated those who could “work” the rigged system just as he boasts of doing.

      How is Kye any different from Hunter Biden?

      Jared and Ivanka “earned” between $172 million and $640 million during their tenure in the WH.

      • drowningpuppies says:

        Rimjob: How is Kye any different from Hunter Biden?

        <

        blockquote>
        Bet he hasn’t snorted up Peru nor f#cked his dead brother’s wife, dipshit.

        You’re really not very good at this.

        Bwaha! Lolgf https://www.thepiratescove.us/wp-content/plugins/wp-monalisa/icons/wpml_cool.gif

        • Elwood P. Dowd says:

          Hey Rimmy,

          Besides Teach, Kye and gitar how many other assholes do you rim in a day?

          • drowningpuppies says:

            Rimjob, let me reiterate, you’re really not very good at this.
            Everyone laughs at your futile attempts to be relevant.
            But then again you are a dipshit.

            Bwaha! Lolgf https://www.thepiratescove.us/wp-content/plugins/wp-monalisa/icons/wpml_cool.gif

          • Elwood P. Dowd says:

            Yet, Rimmy, rather than laugh you take your tongue out of Teach’s bunghole long enough to type your nonsense.

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