Obama Calls on GOP To Back Road Spending

Standing in front of one of the most crowded, deficient bridges in the United States, President Obama called on Republicans to help him pass a jobs bill that contains $27 billion in construction spending for highways and bridges.

“It’s located on one of the busiest trucking routes in North America,” Obama said Sept. 22 at the Brent Spence Bridge in Cincinnati. “It sees about 150,000 vehicles cross over every day and it’s in such poor condition that it has been labeled functionally obsolete.”

The traffic-clogged bridge — built 63 years ago for 80,000 vehicles a day — carries Interstate 71 and Interstate 75 traffic over the Ohio River between Cincinnati and Covington, Ky.

“Shipping companies try to have their trucks avoid the bridge, but that only ends up costing them more money,” Obama said.

Ohio officials said the bridge carries about 30,000 trucks a day.

The states and the U.S. Department of Transportation have drawn up plans to replace the bridge but do not have the estimated $2 billion needed to replace the span, which originally cost $10 million to build.

Obama said in his speech that the bridge connects the home states of House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

“They can either kill this jobs bill, or they can help us pass it,” Obama said.

The president unveiled a $447 billion jobs plan on Sept. 8, but the plan has not been received warmly in Congress, particularly in the House, where the Republican majority has said cutting government spending is the first priority.

Driving home his point about the need for infrastructure investment, the president also pointed to other deteriorated bridges.

“There are bridges and roads and highways like this throughout the region,” he said. “A major bridge that connects Kentucky and Indiana was just closed down for safety reasons.”

That bridge, the 49-year old Sherman Minton Bridge over the Ohio River between Louisville, Ky., and New Albany, Ind., carries Interstate 64 traffic. The span was closed Sept. 9 after a crack was found in what the Indiana Department of Transportation called a “critical load-carrying element of the bridge.”

Obama said he knew that Boehner and McConnell care about their states.

“And I can’t imagine that the speaker wants to represent a state where nearly one in four bridges is classified as substandard,” the president said.

“I know that [Rep.] Paul Ryan, the [Wisconsin] Republican in charge of the budget process, recently said you can’t deny that ‘infrastructure does create jobs,’ ” Obama added.

“If that’s the case, then there’s no reason for Republicans in Congress to stand in the way of more construction projects. There’s no reason to stand in the way of more jobs,” Obama said.

The jobs plan also has not been received with enthusiasm by transportation advocacy groups, which have said the surface transportation system is deteriorating in part because Congress has failed to pass a highway funding bill.

The nation has been without a highway bill since September 2009. Since then, Congress has passed seven temporary extensions, the latest of which Obama signed on Sept. 16.