{"id":6648,"date":"2012-01-04T00:07:16","date_gmt":"2012-01-04T08:07:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=6648"},"modified":"2012-01-04T00:07:16","modified_gmt":"2012-01-04T08:07:16","slug":"republicans-ignore-infrastructure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/04\/republicans-ignore-infrastructure\/","title":{"rendered":"Republicans Ignore Infrastructure"},"content":{"rendered":"

While nations in Europe and Asia are investing in high speed rail, green energy, modern highways, and data networks that give users there ten times the bandwidth for less money than we have here, the Unites States is crumbling.  Our roads and bridges are decaying, we are falling behind in green energy, our power grid and our data networks are obsolete.  The longer this goes on, the less competitive we will become in the world economy.  Democrats have tried several times to invest in infrastructure, also providing a much needed boost to our economy, but Republicans have blocked it at every turn.  Meanwhile, the Republican candidates for President offer no solutions.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"4Infrastructure\"Republican presidential candidates have attempted to make their 2012 effort to unseat President Obama about the economy, but time and time again, they have proven unwilling to address the major crises threatening the future of America\u2019s economic growth. At multiple debates, the candidates offered little in the way of how they would address the fiscal crisis engulfing Europe and failed to understand the driving factors behind it. They offered no solutions<\/a><\/font> to the American housing crisis, even as millions of homeowners face foreclosure and prices continue to fall. In sum, their policies would warrant a failing grades<\/a><\/font> in an Econ 101 class.<\/font><\/p>\n

Now, with evidence piling up that America\u2019s infrastructure is failing on multiple fronts, the candidates are again offering no long-term plans<\/a><\/font> for the nation\u2019s transportation or infrastructure programs, Politico reports:<\/font><\/p>\n

Though the words \u201ccrumbling infrastructure\u201d have become almost clich\u00e9 in the American lexicon, candidates\u2019 websites are barren of transportation plans<\/font><\/strong><\/span>, save for expansion of domestic energy production. Only Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) delves into infrastructure policy at all in his Web platform, proposing to privatize the FAA, abolish TSA and halve the Department of Transportation\u2019s budget. DOT should consider itself lucky it\u2019s not one of the five departments Paul would eliminate as president.<\/font><\/p>\n

POLITICO reached out to all seven of the Republican 2012 campaigns; none chose to flesh out infrastructure positions<\/font><\/strong><\/span>. <\/font><\/p>\n

The GOP may choose to ignore the many problems facing America\u2019s infrastructure, but those problems aren\u2019t going away. Economists estimated in 2011 that the United States would need more than $2 trillion in investments<\/a><\/font> just to bring its infrastructure up to date\u2026 [emphasis original<\/em>]<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Think Progress<\/a>><\/p>\n

If Republicans cared about our economy, as they claim, they would have plans to restore infrastructure.  But the Republicans are lying.  We know this, because, if they really cared about our economy, they would not keep sabotaging it to make Obama look bad.  Every penny spent putting Americans to work restore our infrastructure is a penny Republicans cannot give to a billionaire.  Republicans do NOT represent you.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While nations in Europe and Asia are investing in high speed rail, green energy, modern highways, and data networks that give users there ten times the bandwidth for less money than we have here, the Unites States is crumbling.  Our roads and bridges are decaying, we are falling behind in green energy, our power grid […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6648\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}