Reposted from Goverment Accountability & Oversight
As far back as June 2020 progressive AGs already banded together to make sure promiscuous claims of a so-called COVID “emergency” didn’t unleash projects that were actually “shovel ready”. Could lead to economic recovery.
Shut down the economy in the name of a COVID emergency? How dare you question that.
Spend trillions for the same reason? Absolutely.
Suspend laws in the name of a “climate emergency”? Of course.
But expediting those things that (even the very same) politicians insist are their top priority — infrastructure projects — to, you know, actually put people back to work and get them built? Don’t get crazy.
H/t Energy Policy Advocates.
Build a bridge…a bridge to the future…a bridge to Cuba so Joey and Nanci and all them demrats can walk right over….to Cuba. Joey and pals want mo gubment…mo debt….mo waste…mo illegals….mo socialism…..mo Zucking America up….Joey can do it….he stole that election fair and square.
Anti-griff,
May I call you Anti? I think they’re trying to build a bridge to Mt. Olympus where they can play the demigods they believe they truly are; while the peons, like you and me, are left below in places very similar to Cuba or Venezuela or North Korea!
The DemoKKKrats have truly shown themselves to be the party of crooks and crazies, with an extra heaping portion of voter fraud thrown in for good measure! If the Republicans would only stop playing the stupid party for few election cycles they would find a huge populist wave building across the country that could sweep them into power for years!
KrookKookKorporatists.
Why would they walk when they can fly? After all, what good is it to have money and political power if they have to walk like everyone else?
Yea, verily I say unto you thou shalt not look upon the face of the handler of president Biden*.
Most of what he is saying translates as “Help, I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up!”
have you considered forming a group of NeverGriffers?
As long as something/anything enhances the Marxist ideology it’s good to go with today’s government in Washington. Spend more of other peoples’ money? Why not? Social justice? Absolutely. Decapitate fossil fuel use despite repercussions? Yes. Rule of law? No.
Can’t have Trump be right about recovery in 2021.
The scariest aspect of Progressivism to me is the complete unwillingness to agree to anything that might be beneficial if the Wrong People get benefits, too! Didn’t Obama say somewhere that he knew that raising taxes wouldn’t make things better; it was just the Right Thing To Do!
The only safe way to get out from under the debt load we are currently living under is to create a rip roaring economy while holding government spending in check. With low tax rates and regulations the Treasury actually gets increases in tax revenues; it’s happened after EVERY tax cut since the 1920s! Businesses boom and employment drops to low levels as we saw in 2019!
The alternative is to inflate your currency as we are doing now, which leads to the Weimar Republic or Venezuela. At least the political elite and their cronies won’t have to worry about hyperinflation
I think they are setting up to inflate away the debt. Insane inflation with limited interest rates makes the debt shrink as a % of the GDP.
Been done before, they (the fed) are doing it again?
More likely they will monetize the debt.
Democrats just propose infrastructure projects so they can look like heroes by blocking said infrastructure. On a deeper level, their NGOs often sue the project developers and reap huge financial rewards in a financial settlement. The infrastructure be damned.
In the real world of COVID stimulus funding for infrastructure projects( in Victoria Australia)
1. COVID lockdown restrictions were different for different types of construction.
2. Depending on the type, size and diversity of projects some companies were severely impacted by the lockdowns while others suffered no impact at all.
3. Some companies were able to “milk” the governments job keeper funding, and actually do better financially. ( nothing illegal, they just played the system).
4. When the federal government provided COVID stimulus money for infrastructure projects, there was an expectation that they could be built quickly. However, there is an expectation that each project must also meet all legislative requirements.
5. Obviously, it’s best if all stimulus projects are “ shovel ready”
6. I am managing 17 small COVID stimulus projects. None were “shovel ready”. 11 were very small and easy and are currently being built by small local contractors. The other 6 are hopeless. They need consultation and environmental assessment with many government players. Due to COVID emergency these players are slower than normal.
7. Small “ shovel ready” projects provide a real immediate benefit to the local community impacted by COVID.
8. Large complex projects with lengthy lead times offer no benefit for providing the required immediate stimulus.
Unintentional outcome of COVID Funding for construction industry in Victoria Australia.
– The disproportionate lockdown rules and stimulus funding has given “lucky” companies the opportunity to crush “ unlucky” companies.
Additionally, WRT to the Melbourne restaurant industry some businesses have received significant government support while other have been left to go bankrupt.
Large infrastructure projects like roads, harbors, bridges subways, sewers, etc. aren’t shovel ready, but they lead to long, sustained economic growth. Moreover, almost every country has put off upgrading infrastr. Bridges have failed, bad roads cost a forune to society. Do both kinds of projects. The trouble with shovel-ready is they are soon finished and many are just ‘make work’.
Wasn’t Obama forced to admit there were no shovel ready jobs, after the money for them disappeared?
True, but I can’t recall him ever admitting it.
He is on film saying it, and laughing…after he swindled the country out of trillions for them.
https://youtu.be/O55aRrvXtio
Gary
Good comment.
In Australia a typical municipality may spend only 30% of its budget on infrastructure.
Of the 30% –
40% would be building new stuff
40% would be repairing existing stuff
20% would be replacing old stuff.
I would guess the every municipality in Australia ( also USA, uk Canada etc) would have millions $$ of shovel ready old stuff that needs replacing. Stimulus founding for replacing old stuff can provide immediate benefit to the community, create local jobs and improve municipalities long term financial and risk position.
However, Australian COVID stimu
Oops
…. stimulus funding is for NEW stuff. Politicians love it.
Infrastructure projects only lead to economic growth if the projects are needed.
Roads that nobody uses and cities that nobody lives in don’t promote growth.
I had the thought that there must be Democrat small and large business owners out there, farmers, fishermen, contractors, small and large real risk-taking investors (not just the ones where wealth comes from crony cap or from influence peddling by public ‘servants’. I thought that the ruling class of this party had gone so far off the rails that this party was toast, that there would be an angry ground swell of disgust from sensible Democrats from within the party that would disenfranchise its extreme left. Where did I go wrong with this?
The amount of bribery from the ChiComs must be astounding by now! I have heard from a couple of sources that the whole state of Commifornia has been coopted; which might explain how Feinstein could have a Chinese spy as her driver for 20 years, and Swalwell could have a honey trap mistress, yet remain on the intelligence committee! I wonder what the skeletons look like in Pelosi’s or Ted Lieu’s closets; and we shouldn’t forget Adam Schiff!
The mental defect that allows/causes a person to want to be a democrat also allows/causes illogical thinking.
I was not aware of this new theory that Democrats think.
In the last two elections, there has been an “angry ground swell of disgust from sensible Democrats” among the blue-collar working class voters. The first groundswell worked, because the dems did not correctly foresee its size. The second groundswell did not work, because the dems anticipated its reoccurrence and countered it with measures that have left doubts about the integrity of the U.S. voting systems.
Unfortunately, this will continue until Republicans use similar measures in just as great a capacity as the Democrats. The problem is, the Republicans as a whole have more integrity than Democrats.
Newsome is claiming that white supremacists are behind the recall effort in California.
The US is on course to be at or near herd immunity in 6 weeks given 50% of the population has already been infected with Covid, and vaccinations continuing at a pace of 2 million/day, so there was absolutely NO reason to pass a $2 TRILLION “COVID” bill, where 80% of the spending over 2~3 years is pork-fest spending on: bailouts to bankrupt Leftist states and cities, teacher and union pension funds, foreign aid, the arts, pork infrastructure projects, etc…
Americans will get a $1,400 check, at the cost of $6,000/person in future tax liabilities, but since 50% of Americans don’t pay income taxes, the actual cost is $12,000/taxpayer…for $1,400…hmmmm…
Fat too many Americans SUCK at math, logic and economics…
Hai, Samurai-sama!
They suck at math, logic and economics; and if something doesn’t change drastically by 2022 they may not have a functioning economy or government!
We don’t suck at math.
when an election is stolen, we have no control.
The Feds have ignored NEPA, ESA, CWA, CAA, and APA for 30+ years when they feel like it. Enviro lawsuits challenge the breaches very selectively, when it fits their purposes.
For example, the five Fed landowning agencies (USFS, BLM, NPS, NFWS, and BIA) are subjected to barrages of NEPA suits when they attempt land management actions, but not when they allow fires to burn without suppression.
Let It Burn fires are justified by the Feds as treatments “for resource benefit”. Of course, fire does not benefit resources, but more to the point, the arsonist policies are never subjected to the NEPA process. No Environmental Impact Statements have ever been produced prior to the deliberate incineration of tens of millions of acres. No Takings Permits or Biological Reviews of Endangered Species that might be (are) impacted by Let It Burn fires have ever been prepared.
Litigious enviro groups sue the Feds for every proposed timber sale using the aforementioned laws, but never for ignoring those laws when the Feds do Let It Burn.
The “progressive AGs” are equally selective in their (feigned) indignation over NEPA etc. violations. If the project was proposed by Trump, they let fly the pleadings. If the exact same project is proposed by Senile Joe China, the AGs are nowhere to be found.
As such NEPA, ESA, CWA, and similar laws are political weapons, not responsible laws, because enforcement is arbitrary, capricious, and wholly political.
The President will insist his infrastructure boondoggle will build a bridge to a better energy future. His first step, however, will be to tear down the one we have now.
The revolutionaries always promise to build back better! The only time in history where that occurred was in the American Revolution, and that is now being erased!
Do horses like it when someone pulls on the hair on the back of their neck?
I bet they prefer you hold onto them some other kind of way.
Horses are OK with having you pull on their mane. As one who has worked on improving my horseback riding skills for the better part of the past 20 years, I’ve learned that the mane can be useful in recovering my balance when things go awry. 🙂 I would say the young woman in that photo is a very skilled rider; she is in balance and she’s not yanking on the reins.
Especially when you pull so hard that you make their front legs come off the ground. That is some leverage there.
In Pennsylvania, Democratic then-governor Rendell suspended ALL environmental permitting to ramrod through a wind farm in the Endless Mountain Region. Beautiful national forests with ridge-tops ruined by turbines, with no TE species considerations, no stormwater permitting, no nothing. And his hench-person, Secretary of DEP Katie McGinty made it all work. In the same region it is now impossible to install a single natural gas well site on a four-acre pad regardless of how much stormwater and TE permitting you might be willing to do.
If authorities were really worried about CO2 emissions, natural gas should rate high on their list of fuels that they ENCOURAGE….at least until they have built enough nuclear plants to allow everyone to heat their houses and cook with electricity sometime next century.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro is a real piece of work
The Watermelon Summithttps://mises.org/library/watermelon-summit
An environmentalist is a totalitarian socialist whose real objective is to revive socialism and economic central planning under the subterfuge of “saving the planet” from capitalism. He is “green” on the outside, but red on the inside, and is hence appropriately labeled a “watermelon.”
“Watermelons” are as numerous as flies on a herd of cattle and will never give up on their pipe dream of a centrally planned socialist world economy…