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- iHaveNet.com: Politics
Lauren Fox
John Boehner cannot get his party to pass a bill that has historically been a no-brainer
Like most people who live in Washington, I hear frequently from people outside "the beltway" perplexed by the performance of government and the tone of our political dialogue. They don't understand the acrimony and downright nastiness they see exhibited by our elected representatives on television night after night. I don't entirely understand it myself, but a big part of it is that the nation is much more ideologically divided and as a result, so is the
How can I say that?
Let's look at the highway bill now pending in the
While some Republicans see those cuts as being too deep, Boehner's biggest problem according to Hill insiders and most press accounts, is the large bloc within his party that thinks the cuts are not deep enough.
We are not talking social welfare here.
This is not about money for the undeserving poor or protecting endangered wildlife. This is concrete and asphalt used to fix pot holes, repair bridges, widen roads and help the nation's 190 million motorists to get where they are going and perhaps get there with a little less wear and tear. This is a program that is about as Republican as you could imagine.
In 1954 President Dwight Eisenhower called on
The impact that legislation had on the country was monumental. A 50-year review of the economic impacts conducted in 2006 by the Bush administration found that it had lowered production and distribution costs in virtually every industrial sector. On average, U.S. industries realized production and distribution cost savings averaging
But it now seems like we have become the heirs to a family that once held a great fortune but can no longer afford to maintain the family mansion much less expand or update it. What is frustrating is that we are not a poor nation. There is only one reason we can't pass a better country on to our children and grandchildren. That is because our political system has been broken down by those who no longer believe in the legacy of men like Dwight Eisenhower, who refuse to recognize that the public sector has always played a significant role in the growth of jobs and opportunity.
The current skirmish over the highway legislation is only one of many battles that will rage in Washington this year, but because of the long history on bipartisan cooperation on this area of public policy it tells us more than the others about the kind of problem we face. Broad public understanding of that problem provides the only serious prospect that it can be fixed.
Scott Lilly is a senior fellow at the
AMERICAN POLITICS
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Failed Highway Bill Shows Just How Fanatical GOP Has Become | Politics
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