Obama touts $50B plan to rebuild 150,000 miles of roads

McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON

President Barack Obama proposed a quick $50 billion boost in federal spending Monday to rebuild roads, railways and runways — a move he said will create jobs and that Democrats hope will improve their election prospects.

Obama rolled out the Labor Day proposal at a speech to a friendly union audience in Milwaukee, the launch of a week-long push on the economy and jobs that will include a Northeast Ohio speech pushing tax breaks for business and a White House news conference on Friday.

Obama will speak at the Western Campus of Cuyahoga Community College in Parma to a private audience shortly after 2 p.m. Wednesday, according to The Plain Dealer.

This all comes as the country pivots to a fall campaign for control of Congress in which Democrats are expected to take a pounding. Independent analysts predict the Democrats could lose control of the House of Representatives, and perhaps the Senate, thanks largely to anger and anxiety about the economy. The unemployment this week ticked up to 9.6 percent.

Obama vowed that his new proposal would create jobs immediately.

“This will not only create jobs immediately, it’s also going to make our economy hum over the long haul,” he said.

His administration also vowed an immediate jolt of new hiring. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis told NBC’s “Today” program the proposal “will put people back to work immediately.” She told CBS’ “Early Show” that the proposal would “put construction workers, welders, electricians back to work ... folks that have been unemployed for a long time.”

White House aides conceded, however, that the proposal, which still would have to be approved by Congress and then implemented, is not likely to start creating jobs until next year.

“We’re not like trying to put out an idea today that, in October 2010, this is going to create a lot of jobs,” said a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the White House insisted on it. “This is not what this is.”

Obama also used the speech to frame his fall campaign argument against the Republicans — that they’re for the rich and against working people.

“The bottom line is this: These guys, they just don’t want to give up on that economic philosophy that they have been peddling for most of the last decade,” Obama said. “You know that philosophy: You cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires; you cut all the rules and regulations for special interests; and then you just cut working folks loose.

“Well, you know what, that philosophy didn’t work out so well for middle-class families all across America.”

The White House said the $50 billion in spending would be used to build or repair 150,000 miles of roads, 4,000 miles of railways and 150 miles of airport runways.

Republicans called Obama’s proposal more of the same.

“Americans are rightly skeptical about Washington Democrats asking for more of their money and their patience,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., his party’s leader in the Senate.