Yesterday, President Obama, traveled to the Cincinnati,Ohio and Covington, Ky area to showcase the planned reconstruction of the Spence Bridge over the Ohio River.
Interestingly, he read the following comment: "“We’re the country that built the Intercontinental Railroad,” Barack Obama."
This was taken from a Los Angeles Times
story by Andrew Malcolm
posted : September 23, 2011 | 5:24 am
FTA:'….__That’s what the president of the United States flat-out said Thursday during what was supposed to be a photo op to sell his jobs plan next to an allegedly deteriorating highway bridge.
A railroad between continents? A railroad from, say, New York City all the way across the Atlantic to France? Now, THAT would be a bridge!.."
FTA:"…****Now, we used to have the best infrastructure in the world here in America. We’re the country that built the Intercontinental Railroad, the Interstate Highway System. We built the Hoover Dam. We built the Grand Central Station.
So how can we now sit back and let China build the best railroads? And let Europe build the best highways? And have Singapore build a nicer airport?.."
I thought this was an interesting and unusual article and take on our President from what is usually thought to be a newspaper that is or has been considered in his ‘camp’. The whole article is an interesting reading of who/how our President seems to view history, and railroads. He being a major force behind the current HSR Train movement in this Country.
In posting this, I am curious what the ‘take away’ is currently h
He got it from his dim bulb Transportation Secretary who said the same thing in front of a room full of railroaders in Minneapolis on Monday (including me).
The premise is that we have people who need jobs and things that need doing. Therefore, put the people who need jobs to work doing the things that need doing.
President Obama said “Intercontinental” instead of “Transcontinential”
Note that although the LA Times may or may not be considered friendly to the Obama Admistration, Andrew Malcolm has been fairly hostile to Obama for a long time now.
I wasn’t sure I was hearing that right - some noise or static or something over where I was just then - but I can’t disagree, and there were some other gaffes or infelicitous phrases in there as well. The speechwriters need to be careful about the successive alliteration - it can lead astray the unwary.
[:-,] Besides, as our Canadian friends could remind us - we may have had transcontinental tracks in 1869, but we still don’t have a transcontinental company, while they practically have 2 (depends on how you view CP).
The isthmus of Panama is generally considered the boundary between the North and South American Continents. In the 1850s, even before the canal, an American company built the Panama Railroad across the isthmus. It crossed over the Chagres River (the lowest points separating the two continents on the Atlantic side) so in effect it was an “Intercontinental” railroad. This may be nit-picking, but no more so than the original premise of this conversation.
…I’m not interested in putting value to the “intercontinental” issue. But I am interested in seeing someone…sincerely throwing out some thoughts, Ideas, effort, to somehow start digging us out of a critical low economic reality in our great country.
As for that bridge behind the President in view as he gave his thoughts…I was amazed at how much traffic was crossing in both directions…Didn’t they say, it is carrying 150,000 vehicles a day…! If that route had to be closed, I wonder where or what location could absorb that much additional traffic…Not a good situation.
So what if we have an old bridge? Bridges go though a life cycle. They age and wear out. If they become unsafe, we close them. Eventually we blow them up and build them over. Old bridges don’t put people at risk. They might slow down traffic, but that’s just part of the price of the bridge life cycle. We have never believed that every bridge should always be in like new condition. It would be a waste of money. If we worked on them all the time to maintain them like new, we would not be able to use them as much. If we had a prospering economy, we could probably take better care of the bridges, but taxing and spending just to fix bridges will not fix the economy.
I believe that government taxing the economy and using the money to stimulate the economy has the unintended consequence of putting a drag on the economy because the money taken out of the private sector does more harm than the money added for stimulus. <
The word Intercontinental might’ve been on the president’s mind because of the June attack on the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul. It’s always the first word in ICBM. He has spoken the word Transcontinental without mistake at least twice.
Quoting his ‘jobs speech’ to Congress…
:“We all remember Abraham Lincoln as the leader who saved our Union…But in the middle of a Civil War, he was also a leader who looked to the future - a Republican president who mobilized government to build the Transcontinental Railroad, launch the National Academy of Sciences, set up the first land-grant colleges. And leaders of both parties have followed the example he set.”
Quoting his ‘stump speech’ the other day…
“Hello, Cincinnati! It is good to be back in the great state of Ohio…We used to have the best infrastructure in the world. We’re the country that built the Transcontinental Railroad and the Interstate Highway system; the Hoover Dam and Grand Central Station.”