DC
On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 9:05 AM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> [from The Note]
>
> AP's brilliant Beth Fouhy takes a crack at how the states will decide how
> to spend their chunk of the infrastructure money. Ohio's Gov. Strickland
> has appointed an "infrastructure czar" to help determine what projects to
> fund. In Colorado, major decisions will be made by 11 transportation
> commissioners. In Massachusetts, Gov. Deval Patrick has named a real estate
> developer to oversee bidding for the stimulus money.
>
> The president's "signature" issue. There's a massive $8 billion chunk of
> the stimulus dedicated to creating a European-style network of high-speed
> passenger trains. The odd thing about his initiative -- the largest single
> piece of infrastructure spending in the bill -- is it was not included in
> the original House version but added at the 11th hour. How did it get there?
>
> "I put it in there for the president," Rahm Emanuel tells Politico. "The
> president wanted to have a signature issue in the bill, his commitment for
> the future." Politico's David Rogers reports that the White House plans to
> ask for another $1 billion a year for high-speed rail in each of the next
> five years.___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>