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'Piecemeal Solutions Won't Suffice': Progressives Press Biden to 'Go Big' on Infrastructure Plan

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#6

Janiuary, 1942 and our U.S.Navy needed engineers. And found not ONE.

Same darn situation today, with all this cheering. Where are you gonna get the engineers? Looks like we need about 60,000.

Our navy was provided 225 engineers by the Chinese government. They supported our efforts with terrific results. The pacific war ended about two years earlier and the European land war would have ended much sooner if George Marshall and Ernie King’s strategy of invading southern France in summer 1942 had been followed.

Their hard work and contribution should be broadcast by our media to help reduce the harm and beatings given to Asians by our goons.

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#7

Nah, we have plenty of engineers, just have to shut down the defense contractors. We have somewhere around 100-150 of them working for the local Northup Grumman shipyard in a small town here on the coast.

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#8

50 states
Thousands of bridges, interchanges, streets and highways - and that is just the civil engineers.
You offer 2 or 3 per state. Thank you.

Infrastructure also includes our communication networks, waterways such as rivers and great lakes. EPA alone can hire every engineer you have there. Etc.

Wanna spend this taxpayer and borrowed loot correctly, for terrific long lasting results?
Engineers do that.
And we do need many more, now.

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#9

Good point.
During WWII they re-tasked automobile engineers and factories (among other types) to engineer and build weapons of war due to the emergency at hand at that time. Now is the time to reverse that, to meet the emergency at hand today.

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#10

The vehicle engines were from Cleveland, Ohio.
White Motor Company.

Starting in the mid 1930’s, we didi build massive factories near East Chicago, Indiana to build armor tanks. Bodies welded in one and turrets in another. Two more in Hammond with final assy in Gary, Indiana at Budd Company.

There was a tank plant in Cleveland building tanks through the early cold war.
BTW, the army built factories were super designed and built. Inland, far from any attack.

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#11

Wilson Signed the Federal Reserve Act, and in the process created a privately owned bank that controlled the nations money supply, among other things. I wouldn’t call it reigning in exactly. Glass Steagall was more in the way of reigning in banks, as can be seen by the result in 2008 of abolishing it.

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#12

yep, all true.
I was only addressing the issue of where we get the engineers.

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#13

My reference was not lost on you, and that’s why Biden ain’t FDR.

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#14

Peoria area has thousands. Suggest we enact a ‘draft’ for two years common sense progress from these. They would maintain their fringe benefits through their current employer and federal government would re-imburse the company + a handling fee.
Perhaps a split work week would suffice both needs.

FAA needs engineers too. Draft from St. Louis area. Turbine engines from Conn. and Cincinatti.

We can also support music, art, literature, poetry, athletics.

Paid for by having some of the engineers reduce the waste at dept. of war (50%) and medical (50%). We can do claw backs and update federal progressive income taxes to fairness.

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#15

We USAins have been subsidizing Oil, Gas & Resource Extraction engineers for 80 years. The people needed can be cross-trained on necessary technologies, etc. etc. etc. There are guys like you to supervise and provide critical appraisals. I’m sure we can meet the challenges.
FYI- $10 Trillion doesn’t go as far as it used to.

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#16

A quick search yields:

According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there were approximately 2 million engineers , 700 thousand engineering technicians and technologists, and 4.1 million computational professionals in the U.S. workforce in 2018.

60k sounds like a lot of people designing new stuff. Do we need that? I had assumed we are mostly buying existing stuff in any major new infrastructure program. Is that a well accepted number? Of course with 2 million in a labor pool, some percentage of them are willing to move from their current job if the pay is competitive.

And isn’t the situation now very different than when a huge number of people were drafted?

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#17

So many articles on progressives urging and pressing Uncle to move even slightly Left.

Zero articles on Biden urging and pressing the nation to move even slightly Left.

Meanwhile, R sheep scream that Uncle is a communist, and D sheep urge patience with this killer as he and his Neocon admin slowly march the nation Right, Right, Right.

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#18

Engineers are good in math. Asians are good in math.

#19

Of course, if the next war comes, there isn’t going to be enough time to retool anything.

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#20

new stuff
for example bridges. We have prestressed concrete in use for 65 years. cheaper but have 25 year life. Suggest we go all steel with replaceable deck sections. These could be acorn plate with plasma sprayed grit for tire grip.

The sections would be replaced within a few hours. The semi arrives from the factory and slides off the new deck at north end. Dtrives south a bit. Old section lifted and loaded onto trailer. New section rolls south, postioned and lowered. Bridge frame itself should have 100 year life based on fatigue curves.

Thanks for the BLS info.

#21

I offered you 100-150 from one small town in one state. There are these amounts of engineers working in small and large towns/cities all over the country for defense contractors. This doesn’t even include the thousands of engineers currently working for private companies that bid/build infrastructure projects. Another untapped resource is universities with engineering programs, a program modeled after the Piece Corps could be offered to these graduates from these schools, with some kind of benefit to lure them to these infrastructure projects.
And the “borrowed loot” part of your post, if we were to go that route, is just a gift to the wealthy. There is no need for the US to borrow money from anywhere, under our economic system it’s just a scam.

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#22

simply trying to keep in mind that we are leaving behind too many really dangerous situations, economically.

five years of double digit inflation to pay off the viet nam war costs is forgotten??

I really do not want great grandchildren living moderately paying 40% of worked for dollars to federal government just to pay the interest on our treasury bonds.

Wal streeters will still not be paying a fair amount to taxes, nor will wealthy, corporations or even small business.

#23

Ha! Good point.
It will be over before we even know we were at war

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#24

Advanced technology, in a stone aged mentality.

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#25

An infrastructure plan is welcomed, but get S1 passed first. Without that legislation we are in deep trouble with voter/voting laws being passed, as in Georgia.
With the voting reforms we will be in court for the next four years on that issue alone.

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