Snap Fact #109
Post date: Feb 22, 2012 9:29:21 PM
Snap Fact #109
President Obama Urges Congress To Pass Transportation Bill To Create Jobs!
Today's SNAP-CAP is not memorializing an actual accomplishment of President Obama, but instead provides an illustration of one element that goes into the administration’s overall strategy to create a record of the important and meaningful accomplishments. Many of the Obama Administration’s accomplishments occur as the culmination of a strategic process such as the recent passage of the payroll tax cuts along with the unemployment extension (Snap Cap #106).
Just days before the passage of that legislation, the brick wall that Republican legislators had erected seemed impenetrable - and they had loudly dug in to protect their unreasonable position. To some it might have seemed magic, to others it might have seemed that the Republican leadership was finally facing up to the political reality of their position and decided to take the gun out of their mouth before they committed political suicide. In truth, although it was for the most part the latter, the decision the leadership made to back off was the direct result of President Obama's long term strategy that he has been pursuing even before this issue came to public attention. If anyone doubts this and feels it was just blind luck, compare this to the “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” policy and many of the other successes that the President has patiently and successfully pursued over the term of his administration.
Today we are going to take an early peek at a process that will end up as national policy - either if the hard liners become reasonable, or in the President's second term if they don't support this urgent and common sense legislation.
President Obama has been urging Congress to pass the clean extension of key transportation programs to create and maintain more jobs, as well as to improve the conditions of our roads, bridges, railways, and runways. By providing more funding for these programs, we can ensure a safer and better infrastructure in the United States. According to the White House, “If we allow our transportation law to expire without an extension, almost 1 million construction and other workers will lose their jobs over the coming year. If the extension is delayed for just 10 days, our nation will lose nearly $1 billion in highway funding, and that is money we can never get back. In addition, over 4,000 of our professionals in the Department of Transportation will be immediately furloughed without pay.”
This bill is very urgent in our current economy to improve not only our infrastructure system but also our economy as well. President Obama is masterfully working using both strategy and tactics in order to pull another rabbit out of the hat? We will follow this in the future to its conclusion.