Obama Uses Labor Day Speech To Propose Infrastructure Bank

In Milwaukee yesterday, President Barack Obama made his pitch for a new round of spending aimed at jumpstarting the nation’s anemic job market.

The President told a crowd gathered at the city’s annual Labor Day festival that his $50 billion proposal would fund new transportation projects, including improvements to road and airport surfaces, railways and air traffic control systems. Additionally, the funds would spur high-speed rail projects, an investment that is known to be high on the President’s wishlist.

Obama said the projects would be fully paid for, and administered by a new national infrastructure bank run by the federal government that, according to Obama, “will change the way Washington spends your tax dollars.”

With unemployment at 9.6%, the White House says the goal of the proposed initiatives is to breathe life into a sputtering job market. However, opponents of the $50 billion package argue that paying for more spending by ending tax breaks for businesses is not the solution.

‘The American people want us to stop spending, so let’s just give them some certainty,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) over the weekend. “Let’s extend the existing tax cuts, and then let’s give some more tax breaks to small businesses and large, and then maybe the American people will have some confidence.”