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September 06, 2011 10:09 PM UTC

Bennet: Infrastructure. Costs. Money.

  • 44 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

Sen. Michael Bennet wrapped up his August recess tour of the state last weekend, and as the Pueblo Chieftain’s Matt Hildner reports, what he heard was consistent–and not at all in tune with what people in Washington DC seem to think the voters want:

Through more than 90 minutes of questions and answers, Bennet dwelled at length on the need to upgrade the country’s energy and infrastructure policy. But that won’t happen, he said, until Congress can address the country’s long-term fiscal problems…

Bennet added that throughout his stops around the state, he’s heard a few common themes emerge from his constituents about how to solve the federal government’s trouble with deficits and debt. They want a plan that materially addresses the problem.

“They want to know that we’re all in this together,” he said…

[Christine Canaly of the San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council] recounted a recent trip to visit family in Cleveland where her brother’s neighborhood had above-ground pipes delivering water because of the deterioration of the original distribution system.

She said that restoring infrastructure across the country, as the federal government did in building a new water treatment plant at the Summitville Superfund site, could also help ease the recession.

Bennet noted that the U.S. was coming close to losing its inheritance of roads, parks and schools.

“Who are we to decide we’re going to be the first generation not to care for these assets,” he said. [Pols emphasis]

Back in Washington, of course, Republicans are debating whether they should even fund natural disaster relief–which kind of implies they aren’t ready to deal with all the bridges that haven’t collapsed yet. To us, this sums up the problem Bennet is describing, a problem of childish tantrums taking priority over simple adult responsibility, as well as anything could.

And it explains Congress’ 12% approval rating, too.

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44 thoughts on “Bennet: Infrastructure. Costs. Money.”

  1. Why haven’t these providers kept up with the maintenance on the assets we’ve been paying for?

    Is there a plan to sell some more debt increases to cover for the BILLIONS and TRILLIONS in “needed” new spending?

    1. Could it possibly be that Democrats care more about entitlements then they do about infrastructure? Hypocrisy, thy name is Michael Bennet!

      Entitlements cost more than bridges. Stop hiding behind bridges and deal with the problem. Cut entitlement spending and let’s modernize the transportation system in this country. I’m all for it.

      Until then, you’re just hypocrites addicted to handouts, and infrastructure is a convenient excuse for profligacy.

      1. Every Republican House freshman in Colorado explicitly campaigned on “no cuts to Medicare.” Then they all voted to eliminate it under the Ryan plan.

        That’s called “lying” when you do it to your family (like when your mom tells you not to blog until you finished your homework, and you tell her it’s already done).  

        1. arapaGOP is 100% on target, Democrats mask our spending on roads, cops and kids so that the bloated entitlement machine can continue to prosper.

          America (and Colorado) is on an unsustainable track to continue government based growth by diverting more capital from to the public sector …. the result is less economic growth and more government dependance.

          Hell the failed Obama stimulus has shown us the effect of nearly a trillion in government spending …. 9%+ official unemployment with an effective unemployment rate of 17%+

              1. You want Trillions more in government spending, yet you admit that the non tax cut portion of the first Stimulus (@$ half a trillion) resulted in 9-17% unemployment?

                If you did that well with only half a trillion, you should understand why we are very scared to give you even another dollar.

                Try clipping government and “re-engineering” it. How about some outsourcing for starters?  Yep I’m proposing you turn over government functions to the for profit sector of the economy for starters!

                  1. However, if they in fact left more money in the private sector, than they actually resulted in a lower increase in the unemployment rate.

                    Net had Obama not cut taxes he’d be presiding over a much worse unemployment number than 17%.

                    1. But don’t take my word for it.  Is the Wall street Journal an acceptable source?  I know how you hate commie generated links but here’s a brief quote from and link to a WSJ article that explained all the specific tax cuts in detail at the time. I hope they aren’t too lefty for you:

                      WASHINGTON — Congress and the White House reached accord on a $789.5 billion economic-recovery package that would shower hundreds of billions of dollars in tax relief on individuals and businesses (my emphasis) and spark an infrastructure building boom, from the nation’s ports and waterways to its schools and military bases. The deal all but clinches passage of one of the largest economic rescue programs since Franklin Roosevelt launched the New Deal.

                      http://online.wsj.com/article/…

                      Most economists at the time objected that the final deal went too small and didn’t offer enough stimulus.  They have been proven all too correct.

                    1. You guys could get more revenue for that big government machine if you did reform. Of course the added revenue would need to go to debt reduction, which is a whole other fight with big government democrats and big government republicans.

                  2. Our effort during World War II represents the largest public works program in the history of the world and it ended the Great Depression in the United States and it was all government spending. How can you say government spending never stimulates the economy.

                    1. on a massive scale and not just on public works projects but on making bombers, ammo, and everything war related. Folks need to recognize that entering a world war and a massive increase in war time material production actually helped to stimulate our economy.

                      I know the far right absolutely hates to admit that the massive spending undertaken by our government is what officially ended the Depression in 1939/1940 but facts are facts. You will never convince a conservative that the New Deal combined with wartime production vastly contributed to pulling the United States out of the Great Depression and into two decades of prosperity.

                      It’s impossible for a conservative to simultaneously acknowledge that WWII pulled us out of the Great Depression and that the government spent enormous amounts of money on wartime production for that effort.

                      So, I don’t bother trying anymore.  

            1. Your masking it as infrastructure, but as the DC Examiner points out your just covering for the fact you’re avoiding the questions of sustainability.

              It’s about the entitlement reform that you’re ducking …. more failed leadership by the Democrats ….

              http://washingtonexaminer.com/…

              So while the rest of the world delevers, Obama is asking the people’s bank for more leverage … sorry Charlie.

              1. there is absolutely no better revenue generator than tax cuts, plus, we have been hard at work churning out sophisticated economic formulas at the Republican/TP joint idea lab and look at what we came up with !

                tax cuts = jobs

                See !  I know, its pretty awesome.

      2. Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) announced his so called compromise on infrastructure spending.  He proposes to extinguish the 10% set aside in federal transportation construction money for other kinds of transportation construction projects and allow the states to spend it as they see fit for transportaiton needs. In other words, no new money even though transportaiton construction does create new jobs (primarily for privbate enterprise – they build infrastructure projects).

        Every dollar invested in highway projects results in $5.40 in economic benefits to the economy. A very good return on investment and it all goes to the private sector except for taxes paid.

        Second, whether you like it or not, the infrastructure in the United States is deterorriating. For example, the elevated protion of I-70 east of I-25 needs to be rebuilt because it is falling apart. CDOT gathered estimates five years ago for the cost of repairs/replacement and the various private sector companies estimated it would cost between $600 million and $1 billion. What is you solution? Do you think we should ignor it until it collapses?

        What is your solution for the economic doldrums we find ourselves in. So far the Republican solution is to do nothing. Unfortunately, President Obama, whom I lkie, has gone along with this. Hopefully Thursday evening we will hear a resounding speech that places the naiton’s economic future in perspective and offers a specific plan. At tha tpoin the Republicans won’t be able to just say no. They are going to have to come up with something better than tax cuts which by the way increase the deficit that they so staunchly state they want to eliminate.  

        1. I don’t think it’s because he doesn’t care, I just don’t think he’s got what it takes to fight the GOP. So our best option is suffer for another 5 years of the GOP driving everything, and then try to convince the electorate that the next candidate will actually be different.

    2. …and I am willing to accept any of the following:

      105% of my current tax burden (30,000->31,500),

      105% of my current tax rate (15-15.75%), or

      5% added to my current tax rate (27-32%).

  2. From the linked article:

    Bennet did call for the overhaul of the country’s tax code that would lower rates but eliminate loopholes to ensure that more revenue can be collected.

    This is apparently the new consensus. I’m not sure everyone understands what it means. It’s basically an endorsement of the far-right plan proposed by Huntsman and pretty much every other Republican candidate who’s bothered proposing a tax plan. Hint: by “loopholes” he and his bipartisan colleagues mean deductions, things like the mortgage deduction that benefits the middle class, and quite possibly things like the earned income credit.

    The desired effect is to lower taxes on the rich and raise them on everyone else. Who else cares about the highest marginal rate but the super-rich? Why would anyone want to lower it, knowing that it doesn’t have any effect on investment? Of course, in order to be bipartisan, the tax plan Bennet is endorsing would end up being revenue-neutral. So it wouldn’t solve any of the infrastructure problems he’s talking about, would help the rich, and hurt everyone else.

    It’s an impressive scam, but it makes me wish Pols and its commenters weren’t falling for it so gullibly.

      1. Flat tax systems are known drivers that promote greater economic achievement.

        The incentive in a flat tax system is to make more money …. your progressive systems actually work to clip growth.

            1. In an article titled The flat-tax revolution, dated April 14, 2005, The Economist argued as follows: If the goals are to reduce corporate welfare and to enable household tax returns to fit on a postcard, then a true flat tax best achieves those goals. The flat rate would be applied to all taxable income and profits without exception or exemption. It could be argued that under such an arrangement, no one is subject to a preferential or “unfair” tax treatment. No industry receives special treatment, large households are not advantaged at the expense of small ones, etc. Moreover, the cost of tax filing for citizens and the cost of tax administration for the government would be further reduced, as under a true flat tax only businesses and the self-employed would need to interact with the tax authorities.

              Source of this is Wikipedia. Again, The Economist is a known liberal weekly that I discount due to it’s European home office. But when they argue for a flat tax than it is very telling where the liberals should be positioning themselves.

              2. post a LINK to original information.

                Wikipedia is prone to crowd-missourcing on political issues.

                From the sound of the VIH it does sound like an article, but rather an Opinion piece.

                I know this is confusing to watchers of Faux Entertainment, but opinion pieces are different than “news” or articles.

                BTW I don’t mean “Idiot” as an insult, I mean it as profound mental disability–at least according to wikipedia.

                In 19th and early 20th century medicine and psychology, an “idiot” was a person with a very severe mental retardation.

                snip

                Individuals with the lowest mental age level (less than three years) were identified as idiots; imbeciles had a mental age of three to seven years, and morons had a mental age of seven to ten years.

                snip

                The term “idiot” was used to refer to people having an IQ below 30.

                http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I…

              3. That issue of The Economist had no fewer than three articles on the flat tax.  It was clearly being an advocate at the time, not just a bystander.

                Generally, The Economist is a good source, but it does sometimes do things like this “focus” issue where it gets a bit single-minded.

                1. Some people (mainly the rich)  propose a system where everyone pays at the same rate. And that’s a crappy solution.

                  However, I’ve also seen a lot of people use it to propose a system with no deductions. There would still be 3 -5 rates depending on total income but it would be what did you get and multiply it by that percent. No deductions.

                  And that second approach has a lot to say for it. Because for every deduction you can defend there’s 10 – 20 that are payoffs to different groups.

                  1. “Flat Tax” meant one rate for everyone.

                    And I remain unconvinced that removing all deductions would be a Good Thing.  For one, completely eliminating the mortgage deduction would ruin many family’s finances and further serve to tank the housing market.

              4. Look at “and profits.” If that means a commensurate hike in the capital gains rate, that might go a ways further. Problem is, the Wall Streeters and trustafarians would scream bloody murder.

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