Source:The New Democrat

Campaign For America’s Future: Opinion: Isaiah Poole: Transportation Crisis: Republicans Looking For Hostages, Not Solutions

One of the advantages of being able to talk about solutions and issues and offer ideas to solve those issues when you know you don’t have a shot in hell in being successful is that you can offer and write any plan you want and just wing it. Why not because you know it won’t pass anyway, so what do you have to lose. Which is how I’m going to focus on infrastructure investment because even though the Democratic Senate may reach some compromise before the end of this Congress. The Republican House is not interested in really passing anything now and only interested in trying to investigate the Obama Administration.

Back in the day (and yes I’m old enough to remember this) when cooler and smarter heads were running Congress the House would pass their infrastructure bill every year with the funding to pay for it. And then send it over to the Senate which was already working on their own bill. And they would either take the House bill or add an amendment to it like something to do with how to fund the bill. Or adding new infrastructure projects to it. Because back then members of Congress especially the leadership knew the importance of infrastructure for the economy. Plus they wanted to get reelected and wanted to give their constituents reasons to reelect them. “Hey I got us this new road or bridge” etc.

Take the Tea Party out of the House of Representatives and that is how Congress would still be operating today. Either under the old Republican Leadership in the House or under Democratic Leadership. And they would work with the Senate from either party and we wouldn’t have this one-trillion-dollar debt or more according to the U.S. Core of Engineers. (hardly socialist radicals) Because Congress would’ve kept up with the construction and repairs of our current roads, bridges, airports etc. As well as funding new projects that the country needed.

Funding infrastructure investment in America from a practical and even political point of view with a majority of the country is fairly simple. These projects are generally funded through gas taxes. If there isn’t enough money in the transportation fund to pay for them. Then you can either raise those taxes. Pass a tax on oil, tax alcohol, increase tobacco taxes to pay for these projects. You can tax things that wouldn’t hurt people especially alcohol and tobacco things that people don’t have to have. In order to pay for the infrastructure. This would be my plan to finance infrastructure investment in a partisan climate where there’s probably a better chance of watching sharks fly then for this plan to become law.