More Roads and Bridges to Nowhere

The President-elect has announced that he plans to put the American people back to work repairing roads and bridges. De javu! Wasn't this Bill Clinton's plan to create jobs back in 1993? Did the people who fixed the roads and bridges do such a crappy job that we are still picking up fallen bridges and have to take detours around road construction? Perhaps they are still working on them. I seem to recall that fixing roads and bridges was Jennifer Granholm's answer to putting Michigan back to work. With all of these people working on our nation's highways then why do we know that, come March, we will once again be dodging potholes? Perhaps they need to use something other than that plaster of Paris they call asphalt.

Whenever our elected officials come up with this oft repeated job creation plan I try to get a mental picture of an out of work 55 year old administrative assistant trying to drive a backhoe. Or a former car salesman filling a pothole. I do wish they would figure out how to create more than construction and road repair jobs. What good are new roads if we have no place to drive to? What good are new school buildings when the school districts are going bankrupt?

This so called new era of "Change" seems to be evolving into the past. It is the dawning of an era of "Rehash". While history does repeat itself, trying to replicate history most often ends in disaster. The "innovative and brilliant" Senator from Illinois seems to just be trying to bring back the euphoria he felt when Bill Clinton took office. He is repeating Clinton policies. And like Clinton, he is avoiding the tough stuff. "Quietly observing the auto bailout situation" means he hasn't a clue. His staff leaked out his idea to push the big 3 through a "rapid bankruptcy". This plan has already been considered and was shot down by the big 3 and congressional leaders. Perhaps the President-elect is too busy planning the largest and most expensive inaugural in history. I would think, and this is just my personal feelings, that if the country is in the horrible state that the Democrats have been saying it is, he would have a modest inaugural and go straight to work. Imagine if he was sworn in at noon and was at his desk working by 2. Imagine if all of the money being spent on inaugural balls, concerts, the parade, etc. was spent on paying heating bills for those out of work. Imagine an agenda for the first 100 hours instead of the first 100 days. THAT would be change. THAT would be innovative. THAT would be making history.

Obama's team is already trying to lower expectations and he hasn't even been sworn in yet. We've never actually seen Barak Obama accomplish anything. He hasn't had to. But he will now. Lets hope that the road he chooses to follow isn't the same one his Democratic predecessor took. Clinton took the road to road to moral decay. But at least we had some idea of where he was taking us and we packed accordingly.