We all know the Trumpist Party doesn’t care about debt, but it’s always fun to see our “conservative” leaders cheering any influx of federal cash to pay for roads we South Dakotans can’t afford on our own thin public revenues. In this case, Senators M. Michael Rounds and John Thune celebrate federal handouts of $8.3 million to four-lanify Highway 106 so Tea folks can get to work in Sioux Falls faster and $20 million to fix up Highway 83 between Thune’s hometown of Murdo and White River:
U.S. Sens. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and John Thune (R-S.D.) today applauded the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT’s) decision to award the City of Tea’s County Highway 106 project and South Dakota Department of Transportation’s U.S. Highway 83 project $8.7 million and $20 million, respectively, in critical infrastructure funding under the Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) program. Today’s announcement follows multiple requests from the senators to DOT Secretary Elaine Chao for these projects’ funding.
“I thank Secretary Chao for recognizing the need to invest in these important infrastructure projects,” said Rounds. “The Highway 106 and Highway 83 projects will not only benefit the surrounding communities, they will allow for increased transport of goods and commodities across the region – a surefire boon to the regional economy” [link added; Senator M. Michael Rounds, press release, 2018.12.06].
Rounds knows whereof he speaks when he talks about the stimulatory impact of these federal dollars: BUILD is just the new name the Trump Administration slapped on the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program that President Barack Obama and the Democrats included in the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to pull America out of the recession. Thanks to President Obama, South Dakota received the following freebies:
- 2010: $10M to help rebuild 15.6 miles of U.S. Hwy. 18.
- 2010: $16M TIGER capital grant to rebuild the state-owned MRC rail line from Mitchell to Chamberlain.
- 2012: $1M to help the Yankton Sioux Tribe build a bus barn in Marty.
- 2013: $8.78M to pave and add bike lanes to 17.6 miles of gravel road on the Pine Ridge Reservation.
- 2014: $12.69M to help restore 41.6 miles of MRC rail from Chamberlain to Presho.
- 2015: $6M to replace ten miles of rail near Huron and lay 7,000 feet of new rail in Philip for ag shippers.
- 2016: $14.62M to help the Rosebud Sioux Tribe rebuild BIA Route 7 from Mission to U.S. 83.
- 2017: $21M to help the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe rebuild and reopen BIA Route 10, the main route connecting Lower Brule to Highway 1806 and Pierre.
We should thank President Barack Obama for making the TIGER/BUILD grants available to South Dakota. We could thank Donald Trump for extending this sensible Obama-era program… but Trump asked Congress to eliminate TIGER/BUILD in 2017 and 2018. So by celebrating the grants for Tea and Murdo/White River, Senators Rounds and Thune are actually kinda-sorta standing up to Trump… for once. Yaaaay.
Why would you think Conservatives don’t think the Federal Government shouldn’t be in charge of the Interstate and highway system?
Very few things should be controlled by the Federal Government. Roads are one of those few things.
Why was the interstate highway system built in this country?
Roger,
because a Republican President wanted it built.
You know, it’s kind of a funny thing but back when Obama was president the left kept arguing that one of the positive attributes of government was the building of the interstate road system. The truth is the government didn’t build the interstate rad system. The rads were built by contractors “hired” by the government to build the roads. It was a method of financing (through taxes), awarding contracts (just like for the $200 toilet seats), and contractors (civilian companies) building the roads. Nope, the government did not build the interstates. Even today it is done the same way. If you don’t believe me just stop at one of the traffic cone storage sights around Rapid and ask the workers who they work for. Not a one of them will tell you they work for the feds, state, county or city.
Jason, wrong again. The interstate highway system had the support of both republicans and Democrats. It had to have the support of both parties other money would not have been allocated for the massive project.
When Jason figures out why the interstate system was built maybe he will get back to me.
I thought we built the Interstates to provide emergency landing strips for USAF planes during World War III or Red Dawn, but that’s just a myth. DOT says the Interstate system, conceived before World War II, was primarily designed for purposes of economic development, safety, and congestion-relief.
And it only happened because we have a really big federal government that collects taxes and invests them in public works.
84th United States Congress
Senate Majority Democratic
House Majority Democratic
Sessions
1st: January 5, 1955 – August 2, 1955 2nd: January 3, 1956 – July 27, 1956
Sure looks like Dems had something to do with building the Interstate system.
OldSolicitingwhilesilly- if the gubmint didn’t pay billions of bucks, how much of the interstate would have been built? You make the stoopidest damn arguments just because Cory allows it.
Without the gubmint funds none of the contractors had a hope of helping the government build the Interstate.
Cory has it right, the interstate highway system was built primarily as an development (infrastructure) project.
Eisenhower often said it was the same concept as the European Autobon which was built to move the military and equipment if there was a war. Naturally republicans ate it up when they heard war talk.
mike from iowa has the funding of the highway system right.
President Obama put “shovel ready” projects in play during the Great Recession Recovery and would have put a helluva lot more in for South Dakota had it not been for republican foot dragging.
I think the rail system upgrades are probably the biggest deal though. We all know that the climate is degrading faster than ever so putting transportation on the rails makes a whole lot of sense with more return on the money invested. If we really wanted to improve our infrastructure, we would contract our highway rebuilding to the Chinese. The roadwork by Interstate highway work by Montana Dakota Utilities (AKA Knife River) between Kadoka and Belvidere, is a disgrace and very dangerous. There are about 10 miles of work there that the Chinese would have completed in a couple of weeks at the most. This small patch of work has taken months and it is still not done.
Bridge Building in China. How to get stuff done. While we dither and watch bridges fall down in Minneapolis, China gets’r done. We need more bang for our buck. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-0ChljgWCQ
jerry, you should visit the far east at some time. It is a different culture. China also gets construction done without appropriate safety measures resulting in countless deaths of citizens and workers that would not be tolerated in the US. In countries like China they can simply tell you to shut up or you are sent away to a reeducation camp.
I was under the impression Jerry might well have spent a week or two in some out of the way place called Viet something or another back in the day.
I have indeed spent some time in the far east, I even ventured inadvertently into Laos once upon a time in 1969. I only make observances regarding road construction and why it takes so long to fix stuff here in the United States. I see road construction in Europe every year and I watch them tear up a couple of kilometers of road and have it repaired and completed the next day, if that long. These highways are busy too with a lot of truck traffic and car usage as well. They do that patchwork all the time there. Maybe they do not have Pierre shale, but they do have freeze and thaw cycles there as well, though not as harsh.
Don’t kid yourself Russian, we suffer many many casualties due to mismanagement on construction sites right here in the United States and no one complains. South Dakota has several each year as well. When I see railroads being built across Africa and the ideas of building a rail system across Colombia, from the Colombian Pacific ports to the Colombian, Caribbean deep water ports, I think of being great builders. Here, to go to Presho is the closet we get to see greatness. What has happened to us the United States? Where are our trillion dollar infrastructure projects? Is this all we get for Thune being the Number 2?
In spite of efforts to deny it, Obama’s programs saved our economy and didn’t let the Great Recession turn into the Second Great Depression. TIGER was one of those programs.
There are some things I’d have preferred done differently, like the financial criminals tried and hopefully imprisoned. Also more of a second New Deal, with an Eleanor Roosevelt to be sure the people most hurt were most cared for.
Oh well.
Ah, the Trumpist conservative and libertarian anti-regulation model:
That is the goal of every U.S. anti-regulation advocate – repeal two for one and get rid of those dang government imposed regulation safety measures designed to protect workers or the general public from harm, but that interfere with the profit margin.
Statistics and overview from 2015. We have rather crappy work safety for our construction industry. Nearly 5,000 deaths is pretty numbing.
“In 2015:
4,836 workers were killed on the job in the United States.
The fatal injury rate—3.4 per 100,000 workers—remained the same as the rate in 2014.
An estimated 50,000 to 60,000 workers died from occupational diseases.
150 workers died each day from hazardous working conditions.
Nearly 3.7 million work-related injuries and illnesses were reported.
Underreporting is widespread—the true toll is 7.4 million to 11.1 million injuries each year.
States with the highest fatality rates in 2015 were:
North Dakota (12.5 per 100,000 workers)
Wyoming (12.0 per 100,000 workers)
Montana (7.5 per 100,000)
Mississippi (6.8 per 100,000 workers)
Arkansas (5.8 per 100,000 workers)
Louisiana (5.8 per 100,000 workers)
Latino and immigrant workers continue to be at higher risk than other workers:
The Latino fatality rate was 4.0 per 100,000 workers, 18% higher than the national average.
Deaths among Latino workers increased significantly in 2015; 903 deaths, compared with 804 in 2014.
Almost the entire increase in Latino deaths was among immigrant workers; 605 (67%) of Latino workers killed were immigrant workers.
943 immigrant workers were killed on the job—the highest since 2007.” In 2015:
4,836 workers were killed on the job in the United States.
The fatal injury rate—3.4 per 100,000 workers—remained the same as the rate in 2014.
An estimated 50,000 to 60,000 workers died from occupational diseases.
150 workers died each day from hazardous working conditions.
Nearly 3.7 million work-related injuries and illnesses were reported.
Underreporting is widespread—the true toll is 7.4 million to 11.1 million injuries each year.
States with the highest fatality rates in 2015 were:
North Dakota (12.5 per 100,000 workers)
Wyoming (12.0 per 100,000 workers)
Montana (7.5 per 100,000)
Mississippi (6.8 per 100,000 workers)
Arkansas (5.8 per 100,000 workers)
Louisiana (5.8 per 100,000 workers)
Latino and immigrant workers continue to be at higher risk than other workers:
The Latino fatality rate was 4.0 per 100,000 workers, 18% higher than the national average.
Deaths among Latino workers increased significantly in 2015; 903 deaths, compared with 804 in 2014.
Almost the entire increase in Latino deaths was among immigrant workers; 605 (67%) of Latino workers killed were immigrant workers.
943 immigrant workers were killed on the job—the highest since 2007. https://aflcio.org/reports/death-job-toll-neglect-2017
In China, with over 400 million Chinese in the middle class, there is this report.
“SHANGHAI (Reuters) – The number of deaths caused by workplace accidents in China fell 12.1 percent to 38,000 in 2017 compared to the previous year, state media reported on Tuesday, citing figures from the country’s safety watchdog.” https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-safety/china-workplace-deaths-fall-to-38000-in-2017-report-idUSKBN1FJ05C
Reuters goes on with the truly staggering numbers of workers. Comparing China’s work related deaths and the United States work related deaths, they seem to be kind of close, all things considered.
These boys are always whining about voter fraud, but they cannot find their voice about the voter fraud happening right now in North Carolina. The proof of a direct threat against Democracy, and these boys are mute. A number 2 that’s mute with all that stink.