Governor Kristi Noem keeps insisting that President Joe Biden is driving the economy into the ground. Actually, President Biden is driving a lot of concrete and pipes and wires into the ground that will support economic development for decades:
Two years after the passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, federal funding for transportation and infrastructure is flowing more freely than it has in ages.
In the last three months, the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) has awarded hundreds of millions of dollars to help replace aging passenger railway cars, improve railroad tracks and crossings, upgrade port infrastructure, fix roads and bridges, and repair dozens of fish culverts, among other investments. It’s still too soon to know how much the infrastructure bill will ultimately alter the U.S. transportation system or contribute to efforts to slow global warming, but for the first time in years, cities and counties are receiving millions in direct funding from the federal government to make local improvements [Jared Brey, “Cities Plan Safer Streets with Boost from Infrastructure Bill,” Governing, 2023.11.14].
Even the largely ungrateful South Dakota is getting billions of dollars in investment from President Biden’s infrastructure law. A White House brief says that as of October 31, South Dakota has been pledged $2.2 billion for infrastructure development:
- $1.4 billion for roads, bridges, roadway safety, and major projects
- $207.2 million for broadband access, plus 21,000 households enrolled in the Affordable Connectivity Program
- $337 million for water projects (which Governor Noem said wasn’t infrastructure in 2021)
- $45.3 million for public transportation
- $3.6 million for green school buses and $2.3 million for greener public transit
- $16.9 million for electric vehicle chargers
- $46.3 million for clean energy and energy efficiency
- $44.6 million for airports
- $10.3 million for ports and waterways
- $52.5 million for infrastructure resilience
- $883,500 for brownfield cleanup
Remember, that’s $2.2 billion invested in South Dakota (and more coming!) by a Democratic President whom this state didn’t vote for and whom this state’s Republicans would replace with a guy who never passed an infrastructure bill.
It would be fitting and proper were all the infrastructure funds went to states who’s delegations voted for it. Red states free riding and free loading is inexcusable.
Agree with John. Too bad there isn’t a rule that provides spending ONLY to those states who support the bill. It would prevent a lot of 2-faced politicians from griping about the spending, all the while, bragging about the effect to their constituents. Here’s looking at you, SD delegation!
I thought the same thing the other day when a Trump bum friend of mine stopped by to split the free food he received from the Feeding South Dakota food truck with yours truly. I am talking QUALITY stuff; avocados, walnuts, potatoes, onions, etc.
It occurred to me all the Trump/GOP supporters who benefit from this welfare made possible, despite SD morons voting against the hand that literally feeds them. What if the food truck volunteers denied those hungry old kooks who vote republican? It sort of stuck in my craw; the lack of appreciation and self-awareness of the people of South Dakota.
Thank the Big Dog for Feeding South Dakota. That program, and President Biden’s team, are too good to us.
It is not the Bill of Mr. President Uncle Joe Biden. It is a “Bipartisan” law bill. And it is bad, it is very very bad.
Happy Birthday, Mr. President Uncle Joe!
Kristi Noem has been sucking on Joe Biden s HUGE federal TEAT for years, sucking Billions of dollars and still calls him a Communist?
Gratitude?
I tell ya, with gratitude, we can do wonders and better than Noem can do.
Got $10? You rich.
Kristi, there’s a radical new technology out there, far better than AI. It starts up when you say from your heart, Thank you…
grudznick, is anything that gets past your conservative, partisan obstruction how you define “bipartisan?”
With President Joe Biden, we actually get infrastructure week and even weeks and months.
It is sad that the Republican Party in South Dakota insists that the State remain an economic backwater. There is great potential in the people of South Dakota but we would rather develop and fund industrial hog farms than look to the future of the world’s economic growth. It is South Dakota. Turn your watch back fifty years.
How do you fellows not snicker out your Janus masks when you chastise SD for not wanting giant gubmint waste and also when you chastise SD for accepting giant gubmint waste? In this particular case, it is simply not “Mr. President Uncle Joe Biden’s” giant gubmint waste. It was a Bipartisan giant gubmint waste…grudznick is not putting all the blame on Mr. Biden, like Mr. H is in his headline.
Is there a list or link or way we can find out specifically which projects, in which towns, or on which highways, the SD money went to?
That’s just it, Ms. Linda. Nobody knows. All this giant gubmint waste is just evaporating into the air. The administrative burden is no doubt extreme, padding the pockets of many, and I would bet you a gravy-laden breakfast there are more “studies” going on than there is digging and erecting and concrete pouring going on.
grudz – people know. believe me – people who have any skills whatever at researching things like the details of DOT project funding (for example) know where to look for the PUBLICLY AVAILABLE information and details. Obviously – not aq skill you have, and so, you revert to recitation of old school Reaganist anti-Americanism rhetoric in the form of things like “government is the problem”. Reagan may as well have been the Russian agent many suspect Trump of being. Say, you didn’t have a hookup with Dirty Johnson’s Russian gal-pal Butin – did you? And Thune hanging with Putin on July 4 a few years back?? You’re all cool with that kind of “government” right? I mean – you vote for it/them, don’t you? Send them $$$? Seriously dude – you “Republicans” are a mess.
Here grudz. I lend you some basic querying skill results. https://dot.sd.gov/ev
Well you should help Ms. Linda out then, Mr. Schriever. She doesn’t know.
I have seen with my own two eyeballs more finished major projects in the last year than I can remember. I am sure investing is the best way to keep from falling into shambles. When I go shopping and buy a new outfit, I don’t feel guilty. I saved up so I could buy quality. I consider my new threads an investment. Nobody wants to deal with a tattered up person or country because frumpy and outdated gets interpreted as not being a responsible grown up with any decency or self respect. America is too pretty to let herself go.
Some tangible specimens of the spending:
The VA clinics are both open and look fantastic on the top of Hwy 16 just south of Rapid City.
We just got new, smooth railroad crossings in town. Three on the north side, that I’ve sped over.
Elevate keeps expanding.
The neutrino lab keeps getting makeovers.
Heavy equipment is working on a low income apartment complex on Omaha, behind the old Ziggy’s.
The Lacrosse i90 overpass is finished. Its weird, but whatever.
Soo San Hospital was replaced.
I haven’t flown in awhile, but I think the airport got spiffed up.
Lakota lake is now accessible for recreation for people who have mobility impediments.
Dinosaur Park, a New Deal project from the 1930’s just got a makeover.
…
If you want to talk about the wasteful federal spending, several of my relatives have been enriched for the cattle lost because they failed to lift a finger when inclement weather was forecast and hit. They collected several times what they would have sold for. They also get paid to not pollute, even when they still blatantly do. They still plant after collecting too.
The point is grudz, “nobody knows” is an outright lie, intended to cast government in a negative light. That’s how propaganda works. I am sure you do know that, being a persistent practitioner of the art. Or do you not know what you are doing?
You want to lose elections, ignore 76 percent of voters. (Monmouth Poll on Biden’s Age)
Inflation is coming under control and the infrastructure improvements are underway. Sure, I’ll grant you that. But Biden is too old and frail already. You can be sure that the public doesn’t want to watch five more years of his cringe-worthy gaffes, memory lapses and tripping episodes.
It would have been better had he gotten out six months ago. The next best thing is to exit now. A generic Democrat wins in polls against Trump. I just saw one today. (NBC Poll) Biden is deeply underwater with about 39% approval and he is losing to Trump in swing states.
Listen to the voters. Like me, they are very frustrated with these choices. Biden is not up to the job. He is embarrassing. And, as most of us know, Trump is dangerous.
Biden needs to get out of the race.
Today, Republican welfare farmers are the real ecoterrorists who hate subsidies unless they benefit from them. Republicans and their toadies cry government overreach while <a href="https://www.farmforum.net/story/news/columnists/2023/11/21/david-ganje-the-world-of-court-policymaking/71665791007/"WOTUS architects in the EPA regroup for another round.