Update: Josh Feit has the scoop from Rep Rick Larsen (D-WA) on what Washington would be getting in the House Stimulus plan:
The House legislation includes the following funding for Washington state:
- $847,078,890 in total funding to modernize Washington state infrastructure
- $529,547,455 for highways, roads and bridges
- $216,584,501 to construct and maintain public transit
- $100,946,934 for wastewater treatment to provide clean water
29% of our state’s transportation cash going to transit is a bit better than the national break down, and the total number is a bit more than we had been hearing Washington would get. I wonder how much of the transit cash will be “construct” and how much will be “maintain”.
Orignial post from here:
Streetblog (via Slog) wonders why the Obama Administration pulled the plug on transit funding in the stimulus package, and TPM’s Elana Schor got the answer from Rep. James Oberstar (via Yglesias):
The reason for the reduction in overall funding — we took money out of Amtrak and out of aviation; we took money out of the Corps of Engineers, reduced the water infrastructure program, the drinking water and the wastewater treatment facilities and sewer lines, reduced that from $14 billion to roughly $9 billion — was the tax cut initiative that had to be paid for in some way by keeping the entire package in the range of $850 billion.
Oh well. At least Obama’s closing Gitmo.
:-/
Not happy guys. Not happy.
The thing about the tax cuts is that they’re not effective and they’re pretty much there symbolically to get Republicans on board. So with enough pressure, it might be possible to rollback some of those tax cuts to devote more money to transit projects.
The best thing to do is contact Senators and members of Congress and put the pressure on. The Democratic Congress has the power to improve this legislation, if there’s enough public support. We have three branches of government and if we just wait for one man to be our savior nothing will get done. This is our government. Let’s use it.
The tax cuts are a cop-out for sure. They will basically amount to the federal government borrowing money so that we can save.
Not so we can SAVE, so we can SPEND on other things, like cars! We have to save GM, America will die without it!
Well, I’ll be saving mine for my daughter’s college education.
Indeed, contact Cantwell and Murray. Congress did not want to release the rest of the TARP funding yet the Senate did. Let the Senators know of that displeasure. 500 billion dollars would be about 10 billion for each state. More projects could be achieved through this and we would have a modern infrastructure when we get out. Now if only we could stop them from raising there pay and stop spending like crazy on defense.
Do we know what projects are getting money?
As for the obama-tax cuts? For shame! $275 bn in tax cuts could have been $250 billion in tax cuts, and no one would have noticed. Then transit could have received $35 billion instead of $10bn. It’s pathetic.
I agree! But it wouldn’t even have to be $35 bn. Why not $270 and $15?
What can you buy with that much money? $200 million doesn’t get you close to things like Prop. 1 which was $17 billion.
Our friends to the south in Portland are looking for quite a bit of stimulus cash: they want over a billion dollars for the Columbia River Crossing project, and almost a billion for final design and construction of MAX to Milwaukee. I wish we would be as ambitious as them…
Alex, don’t worry. That CRC project ain’t happening anytime soon… and probably not at all. A lot of Portlanders are against it from happening, and so are quite a few leaders, in both US House, Metro and city.