Transportation We Can Believe In

 

Brookings has a side by side comparison of the presidential candidates’ transportation policies [pdf]. The differences are quite stark actually, and one candidate seems far more serious than the other on the issue. Guess which.

 

From the section entitled Increased Federal Financing for Transportation:

 

Barack Obama: “Obama will address the infrastructure challenge by creating a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank to expand and enhance, not supplant, existing federal transportation investments. This independent entity will be directed to invest in our nation’s most challenging transportation infrastructure needs. The Bank will receive an infusion of federal money, $60 billion over 10 years, to provide financing to transportation infrastructure projects across the nation.”

 

John McCain: The August 2008 edition of Governing (Governing.com) explicitly states that McCain supports cutting ‘pork from transportation spending’ and does not support a larger federal role in the transportation sector.

 

A casual analysis of the major issues facing America – the climate crisis, alternative energy, crumbling infrastructure, economic recession, Iraq war – would seem to suggest that all are at least indirectly related to transportation. This does not seem like an issue best passed off to state and local governments.

 

Another section, this one with direct implications to the economy: Transportation Investments as a Job Creator

 

Barack Obama: “… a robust federal infrastructure investment program today will help strengthen the U.S. economy and provide at least one million more U.S. jobs at a time when the housing and construction industries are slowing … [the Infrastructure Bank] will create up to two million new direct and indirect jobs per year and stimulate approximately $35 billion per year in new economic activity.”

 

John McCain: McCain has not made any public comments on this issue during the campaign.

 

Crickets?