WITH a vote of 359 to 65, the US House of Representatives recently passed the US$305 billion Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act, the long awaited measure to repair America's deteriorating roads, bridges, public transit and rail infrastructure.
About the same time, the Senate voted 83 to 16 for the five-year highways bill that would do all that, plus revive the charter of the US Export-Import Bank that was deliberately been allowed to lapse in June to cut government waste.
While the Conservative Republicans, which sought eliminate the bank as wasteful welfare for the rich as the likes of Boeing and General Electric were the typical beneficiaries. This the Main Street Republican thought would appeal to left-liberals, completely forgetting that such people have seldom found a subsidy they could not bring themselves to support. Moreover, being small town Main Streeters and not Big Apple Wall Streeters they also failed to realise that national export credit agencies are as ubiquitous as fire departments and while idle most of the time, they tend to be needed in the clinches.
To make things clear to the Main Street Republicans, whose hearts were in the right place, but whose parochial intellects were disengages, Boeing and General Electric warned that the loss of the bank's support could cause them to move manufacturing jobs out of the United States, who places with export credit agencies willing to help them. Ethiopian Airlines also said its ability to buy Boeing jets was at risk without Ex-Im financing.
Without enthusiasm, President Barack Obama then signed the bill hours before highways funding was to run out. "This bill is not perfect, but it is a commonsense compromise, and an important first step," he said. perhaps thinking that this was a bill that was likely to employ more Republicans in "fly-over country" between New York and LA. than the usual Democrat voting block "personing" the MUSH (Museums, Universities, Schools and Hospitals) .
But enthusiasm lay elsewhere. The FAST Act is a House-Senate effort is regarded as one of the most important measures this Congress will pass, said House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman Bill Shuster (R-PA).
"This legislation will help repair and improve the critical transportation network that we all rely on. This bill is an investment in America and the infrastructure that underpins our economy," he said.
"After 10 years of short-term band-aids and extensions, Congress will finally pass a long-term, bipartisan surface transportation bill that will begin to deal with our aging network of roads, bridges, and transit systems," he said.
Said the committee's top Democrat Peter DeFazio (D-OR): "This is a common-sense, bipartisan bill we need to bring our aging system into the 21st century."