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I read in the paper today that the Feds wants to authorize $383 billion for highway projects to create 2 million jobs (over 10 years, I think?). Since 1979, just Silicon Valley (San Jose metro area, CA) created over 1.2 million jobs (230,000 since 1992). The cost to federal taxpayers? Much less than $383b I suppose. Impact upon the federal budget decefit? Probably lowered it significantly instead of adding to it.
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There's a good reason this transportation bill is bogged down in Congress and probably will be trimmed down if it passes at all. The head of the House Transportation committee who put the bill together thought it would be a good idea to raise the federal gas tax by 8 cents a gallon to fund it. Of course transportation is notorious for being laden with pork and a variety of home-state fluff projects, so it will be good to see it trimmed down. Transportation Secretary Mineta suggested a mere $247 billion for the bill.
