America needs a better economic stimulus
Posted by zbigniewmazurak on May 24, 2008
Photo by the Gazeta Agency.
During the Floridian Republican Debate, moderated by Tim Russert of MSNBC, Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee called on the US government to spend more on freeways, and rightly claimed that the US economy would be stimulated if it did.
Huckabee thus echoed US Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), who was criticised for his proposal by Michelle Malkin. source
But the USA’s infrastructure – while it’s great – cannot be taken for granted. It needs to be radically improved.
What America needs is a new freeway Act, which will radically expand the American freeway network, which, although it is 75000 kms long, is scarce compared to the giant American territory (the US is the world’s 3rd largest country after Russia and Canada). Also, several American freeways (e.g. the I-405 and the I-5) are overcongested, so the existing freeways must be modernised.
This is a list of my proposals – a list of the freeways that should be built or modernised. Examples:
1) the part of the US-1 road from Miami to Key West should become a freeway;
2) All US Army, USMC and USN bases, and some USAF bases (e.g. Davis-Monthan AFB), should be connected to each other by freeways;
3) the Hot Springs National Park should be connected to the freeway network;
4) as should be 4 villages around Lake Winnipesaukee (NH);
5) Alaska should be connected to Canada by a freeway.
America depends on freeways, which are the ways through which most American passengers travel. Not railways. Not airports. Not ships. It is freeways that are most commonly used by the American people. If built, my proposed freeways would:
1) reduce ‘travel times’;
2) de-congest American roads;
3) save fuel;
4) reduce GHG emissions;
5) reduce the number of people dying each year;
6) give the US military a better road network (which was important for the US to win the American-Soviet War (1945-1991) and the First Gulf War (1991))
7) return $6 for every $1 invested in them to the American people; and
8) make America even more democratic than it is now, by allowing people to travel freely.
As of today, $50 bn of the $150 bn economic stimulus has not yet been given by the US government, so rather than give it, it should improve the American freeway network, so that Americans will have more roads like the one depicted in the photo included in this post.
The USA’s future President should choose either Huckabee or Giuliani as his Transportation Secretary. Both of them have plans that would improve the USA’s infrastructure.
On August 3rd, 2007, Melanie Morgan claimed that the residents of Minnesota are no longer endangered after the I-35 bridge collapsed:
There’s one big difference between the bridge collapse and the terrorist attacks of September 2001: the imminent danger to the residents of Minnesota has now passed; the danger our citizens face from Islamic jihadists has not.
Melanie Morgan’s article
No, Melanie, the residents of Minnesota (and all other Americans) are STILL endangered by America’s infrastructure, which is great, but insufficient for 300 million Americans who are employed by the world’s #1 economy. You are wrong, Melanie. Americans will only be safe when their infrastructure, for which they pay usurious taxes (like the federal diesel excise), will be modernised.
And, as Rudolph Giuliani said some months ago, the federal government cannot mend this alone. It needs partners – state and local governments.
