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Title: President Bush Offers Sympathies and Assistance to Minneapolis and Calls on Congress to Act Before Recess
Source: [None]
URL Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/08/20070802-2.html#
Published: Aug 3, 2007
Author: W in the Rose Garden
Post Date: 2007-08-03 23:53:01 by kiki
Keywords: None
Views: 106
Comments: 9

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. I just finished a Cabinet meeting. One of the things we discussed was the terrible situation there in Minneapolis. We talked about the fact that the bridge collapsed, and that we in the federal government must respond and respond robustly to help the people there not only recover, but to make sure that lifeline of activity, that bridge, gets rebuilt as quickly as possible.

To that end, Secretary Peters is in Minneapolis, as well as Federal Highway Administrator Capka. I spoke to Governor Pawlenty and Mayor Rybak this morning. I told them that the Secretary would be there. I told them we would help with rescue efforts, but I also told them how much we are in prayer for those who suffered. And I thank my fellow citizens for holding up those who are suffering right now in prayer.

We also talked about -- in the Cabinet meeting talked about the status of important pieces of legislation before the Congress. We spent a fair amount of time talking about the fact that how disappointed we are that Congress hasn't sent any spending bills to my desk. By the end of this week, members are going to be leaving for their month-long August recess. And by the time they will return, there will be less than a month before the end of the fiscal year on September the 30th, and yet they haven't passed one of the 12 spending bills that they're required to pass. If Congress doesn't pass the spending bills by the end of the fiscal year, Cabinet Secretaries report that their departments may be unable to move forward with urgent priorities for our country.

This doesn't have to be this way. The Democrats won last year's election fair and square, and now they control the calendar for bringing up bills in Congress. They need to pass each of these spending bills individually, on time, and in a fiscally responsible way.

The budget I've sent to Congress fully funds America's priorities. It increases discretionary spending by 6.9 percent. My Cabinet Secretaries assure me that this is adequate to meet the needs of our nation.

Unfortunately, Democratic leaders in Congress want to spend far more. Their budget calls for nearly $22 billion more in discretionary spending next year alone. These leaders have tried to downplay that figure. Yesterday one called this increase -- and I quote -- "a very small difference" from what I proposed. Only in Washington can $22 billion be called a very small difference. And that difference will keep getting bigger. Over the next five years it will total nearly $205 billion in additional discretionary spending. That $205 billion averages out to about $112 million per day, $4.7 million per hour, $78,000 per minute.

Put another way, that's about $1,300 in higher spending every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every year for the next five years. That's a lot of money -- even for career politicians in Washington. In fact, at that pace, Democrats in Congress would have spent an extra $300,000 since I began these remarks.

There's only one way to pay for all this new federal spending without running up the deficit, and that is to raise your taxes. A massive tax hike is the last thing the American people need. The plan I put forward would keep your taxes low and balance the budget within five years, and that is the right path for our country.

I want to thank OMB Director Rob Portman for his hard work in developing this plan. This was Rob's last Cabinet meeting. Laura and I wish him and his family well. And I call on the Senate to confirm his successor, Jim Nussle, so we can work together to keep our government running, to keep our economy growing, and to keep our nation strong.

Thank you for your time.

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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 6.

#1. To: kiki (#0)

And to think he and his wife will be in town, creating more traffic congestion than the loss of the 35W bridge that just collapsed.

Every single time a big politician from Washington comes into town, we have traffic woes.

It's better that Minnesota take care of its problems by itself, than rely on the federal government, because we have seen exactly what you get when you expect them to bail you out.

Katrina is a fine example of why you should avoid federal help.

TommyTheMadArtist  posted on  2007-08-04   0:35:40 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#2. To: TommyTheMadArtist, kiki (#1)

he probably has a buyer for it who didn't want the old bridge, but a brand spanking new one.

Wanna Buy a Bridge?: Selling America's Infrastructure

Paul Crespo

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Cities and states across the country are selling off billions of dollars worth of strategic infrastructure – and often they are peddling these vital American assets to foreigners.

Local governments increasingly see the selling or leasing of infrastructure such as roads, bridges, ports, and airports as a quick and easy solution to their voracious budgetary appetites.

"Roads and bridges built by U.S. taxpayers are starting to be sold off, and so far foreign-owned companies are doing the buying," USA Today reported on July 15, 2006.

Homeland Security admits that 80 percent of our 3,200 port terminals nationwide are now operated by foreign companies and countries.

In fact, it took the controversial Dubai Ports deal in 2006 to bring this worrisome issue dramatically into the public eye. The ensuing public furor over Arab control of several major U.S. ports in the aftermath of 9/11 ultimately doomed that deal.

Yet the foreign purchase of U.S. infrastructure has been proceeding at a rapid pace and foreign companies already own many of these assets, especially in the maritime and aviation industries.

"Policy-makers are asking themselves, ‘What assets can we lease?'"

Arturo Pérez, a fiscal expert at the National Conference of State Legislatures, told http://Stateline.org. "A lot of creative minds are out there working on that."

Robert Poole, founder of the libertarian Reason Foundation, estimates that there are currently $25 billion worth of public-private highway deals being planned. More than 20 states have passed legislation allowing public-private partnerships to run highways. Indiana's House narrowly approved a proposal to lease the 157-mile Indiana Toll Road for $3.85 billion to a joint venture of Cintra – a Spanish company – and Australia's Macquarie Bank.

Among the thoroughfares being discussed for possible privatization are the New York Thruway and the Ohio, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania turnpikes, they add.

The privatization wave goes back more than a decade. The U.S. government first blessed this fire sale of American infrastructure on April 30, 1992, when the senior President Bush signed Executive Order 12803, called "Infrastructure Privatization."

The order directed federal departments and agencies to encourage state and local governments to "privatize infrastructure assets." These assets ran the full gamut from "roads, tunnels, bridges, electricity supply facilities, mass transit, rail transportation, airports, ports, waterways, water supply facilities, recycling and wastewater treatment facilities, solid waste disposal facilities, housing, schools, prisons, and hospitals."

The current President Bush is continuing the process begun by his father. As part of the 2005 transportation bill, he persuaded Congress to make it easier for states to issue tax-exempt bonds for public-private road and bridge projects, and he is acquiescing to European demands to open U.S. airlines to foreign ownership.

So what is the federal government's mechanism to control this infrastructure privatization? A little-known government agency known as the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) is supposed to be responsible for protecting our national security interests when foreigners seek to buy U.S. assets.

But one major problem with Executive Order 12803, notes Phyllis Shlafly in the newspaper Human Events, is that it didn't put any specific restrictions on who could purchase our assets, and since CFIUS operates in secret, few understand its procedures.

Frank Gaffney, President of the Center for Security Policy, discovered that "out of more than 1,500 cases of foreign acquisitions reviewed since 1988, CFIUS has only formally rejected one."

Gaffney, a critic of CFIUS' secrecy, said in National Review Online that the Dubai Ports fiasco obscured the even greater threat of these same foreigners buying parts of our defense industrial base.

One significant example Gaffney pointed to is Dubai International Capital's $1.2 billion acquisition of Doncasters Group. Doncasters' U.S. subsidiaries produce precision components used in, among other things, engines for military aircraft and tanks.

Other experts are less concerned. James K. Glassman, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), believes the foreign control danger is overblown. According to Glassman, at the heart of the "feverish reaction" to the Dubai Ports deal is the fear of terrorist attack, including the frightening specter of a dirty radioactive bomb or a full-fledged nuclear device shipped into a major U.S. city.

But Glassman argues that while such an attack is a real concern, "the notion that a sale of assets to a Dubai company will increase the threat of such an attack is, emphatically, not."

Veronique DeRugy, another expert at AEI, concurs: "Foreign operation of American ports is nothing new. At least 30 percent of terminals at major U.S. ports are operated by foreign governments and businesses… Ownership does not affect in any substantive way the dynamics of terrorist infiltration."

There are other concerns, however. While the easy upfront cash offered by these privatizations appears particularly appealing to local governments, the short-term financial gains could outweigh the long-term burdens to the taxpayer.

By privatizing these assets, state and local entities enjoy the short-term political rewards of increased spending for new projects. Yet they seem to ignore the fact that U.S. citizens may be paying tolls to these corporate landlords for generations to come.

Pamela M. Prah of http://Stateline.org observes: "Critics argue that private firms are apt to jack up tolls and fees because they have to keep investors, not voters, happy. Others worry that states will fritter away the upfront money."

There are other pitfalls as well. In California, Orange County's contract with a French company that bought part of state Route 91 for $130 million instead ended up costing the taxpayers more than $75 million. Orange County found out that the contract prohibited it from building more roads and it had to buy back the lease for $207.5 million.

"I'm mistrustful of something-for-nothing schemes, and conceptually, these plans have a whiff of that," Nick Johnson, a state budget expert for the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, said on http://Stateline.org. What's more, there is little public accountability regarding these privatizations. Elected officials abdicated their responsibility and the appointed officials are bound by contract.

These contracts cover everything from maintenance to prices charged for services, and users of these assets have little recourse if they are dissatisfied with the contractor's performance.

* * *

Foreign Ownership or Lease of U.S. Infrastructure Assets

Many of the critical infrastructure assets that Americans rely on daily — from airports, seaports and highways to water systems — are managed by private foreign companies, according to a 2006 report by the Reason Foundation.

# Most of the U.S. domestic shipping industry, including vessels, containers, handling equipment, and port facilities, and approximately 80 percent of U.S. port terminals, are leased and operated by foreign companies.

# Of the 517 domestic airports offering commercial passenger service in the U.S., 13 have management contracts with private companies, and all of these companies have significant foreign ownership or involvement.

# Indianapolis International Airport is now the largest privately managed airport in the U.S. It is under a long-term management contract with BAA Indianapolis LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of BAA plc (the privatized British Airport Authority).

# Of approximately 54,000 publicly owned water and wastewater systems, more than 5 percent of them have operations or maintenance contracts with private firms. Many of these 2,400 plants are held by domestic firms with a foreign parent.

# In June 2006, a Spanish firm paid $1.3 billion for a 50-year lease to operate a 10-lane toll road through the heart of Texas.

# Cintra, a Spanish company, and Australia's Macquarie Bank – the two firms that recently leased the 157-mile Indiana Toll Road – previously signed a 99-year lease for the 7.8-mile elevated Chicago Skyway.

# In 2005, Macquarie acquired the Dulles Greenway outside Washington, D.C. And Cintra also is a strategic partner with the Texas state government in the planned Trans-Texas Corridor.

http://www.newsmax.com/scripts/printer_friendly.pl?page=http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/7/23/152653.shtml

==========================================

AllTheKings'HorsesWontDoIt  posted on  2007-08-04   21:17:13 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#4. To: AllTheKings'HorsesWontDoIt (#2)

The privatization wave goes back more than a decade. The U.S. government first blessed this fire sale of American infrastructure on April 30, 1992, when the senior President Bush signed Executive Order 12803, called "Infrastructure Privatization."

Some traitorous prick on talk radio called me a kook when I said that these foreign entities actually OWN the lands they buy and can do with it what they so choose.

This country's lack of honest leadership, is yet another betrayal that we simply cannot afford anymore.

It's time to impeach, incarcerate, and imprison every politician who have done nothing but sell us out, and make it retroactive, to previous administrations. These people have betrayed our country for decades, and there's no end to the betrayal in sight.

TommyTheMadArtist  posted on  2007-08-05   4:28:31 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#6. To: TommyTheMadArtist (#4)

he probably has a buyer for it who didn't want the old bridge, but a brand spanking new one.

=============================

Some traitorous prick on talk radio called me a kook when I said that these foreign entities actually OWN the lands they buy and can do with it what they so choose.

Now I wonder if the bridge was ALREADY in private hands....it was slated for repair or replacement....like the twin towers...how much sweeter to have someone else pay for it, someone like the US taxpayers.

AllTheKings'HorsesWontDoIt  posted on  2007-08-05   11:19:06 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


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