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National
House Jobs Bill Provides $27.5B for Highways and $9.2B for Transit
“If the goal is to create jobs, invest in buses and rail rather than highways,” said the Boston-based US Public Interest Research Group’s (US PIRG’s) Senior Tax and Budget Policy Analyst Phineas Baxandall, commenting on the new $154-billion job stimulus bill. The bill takes $75 billion in leftover money from the bank-bailout fund to provide another $48 billion for “shovel-ready” infrastructure projects that could put workers on the job by April, $26.7 billion to help states and localities avoid public worker layoffs, and $79.4 billion to expand or extend several programs for the poor and unemployed.
As the House debated the bill, eventually passed by a 217 -212 vote, with all Republicans and 38 Democrats opposed, report Reuters writer Andy Sullivan and Christian Science Monitor writer Ron Scherer, the US PIRG, the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT), Smart Growth America and other public interest groups continued their campaign for a larger share of funds to boost transit as generating two times more jobs than highway construction.
According to US PIRG Analyst Baxandall, each billion invested in public transportation creates 16,419 jobs per month, in contrast to 8,781 created by funding highways. A big investment in rail, said Reconnecting America President John Robert Smith could help employ jobless auto workers, since it “takes the same skill set to build an 80-foot passenger rail car as it does to build an automobile.”
With states having 9,500 shovel-ready road, bridge and transit projects, and with the construction industry reporting 19.4 percent unemployment last month, the House bill moves in the right direction, earmarking $27.5 billion for highways, and $9.2 billion for public transportation, including $800 million for Amtrak. It also provides $4.1 billion for school repair, $2 billion for local sewer and water system upgrades and $100 million for rural drinking-water systems, and $2 billion for public and rental housing improvements.
“We are on the road to recovery and we are there because this Congress made some very important and difficult decisions to take us there,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, with President Obama applauding the House bill, which will be taken up by the Senate next month. “Some may think standing by and taking no action is the right approach,” he stressed in a statement, “but for the millions of Americans still out of work, inaction is unacceptable.”
See Reuters breakdown of the bill’s allocations at www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N16131092.htm. 12/16/2009
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