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September 6, 2010
Rising to the Occasion By BOB
HERBERT<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/bobherbert/index.html?inline=nyt-per>

On Labor Day afternoon in Milwaukee, President Obama finally began to
vigorously push the kind of high-profile, rebuild-America infrastructure
campaign that is absolutely essential if there is to be any real hope of
putting Americans back to work and getting the economy back into reasonable
shape over the next few years.

In a speech that was rousing, inspirational and, at times, quite funny, the
president outlined a $50 billion proposal for a wide range of improvements
to the nation’s transportation infrastructure. The money would be used for
the construction and rehabilitation of highways, bridges, railroads, airport
runways and the air traffic control system.

Mr. Obama linked the nation’s desperate need for jobs to the sorry state of
the national infrastructure in a tone that conveyed both passion and
empathy, and left me wondering, “Where has this guy been for the past year
and a half?”

After noting that nearly one in five construction workers is unemployed, Mr.
Obama told the crowd, “It doesn’t do anybody any good when so many
hard-working Americans have been idle for months, even years, at a time when
there is so much of America that needs rebuilding.”

The U.S. once had the finest infrastructure in the world, he said, “and we
can have it again.”

The president’s plan would include the creation of an infrastructure bank
that would use public dollars to leverage private capital for major
projects. If properly conceived and executed, the bank could become a
crucial factor in financing the nation’s long-term infrastructure needs.

It should be kept in mind that Mr. Obama’s proposal is only a first step.
Despite the $50 billion price tag, it’s not in any way commensurate with our
overwhelming infrastructure needs or the gruesome scale of the nation’s
unemployment crisis. But it’s an important step. It’s a smarter approach to
infrastructure investment than the wasteful, haphazard, earmark-laden
practices that we’ve become accustomed to, and it will put some people to
work in jobs that pay decent wages.

The details of the proposal are less important than whether the proposal
itself is a sign that Mr. Obama and his party are ready, at long last, to
engage this awful economy with the sense of urgency and bold initiatives it
requires. The plan won’t help Democrats in November. It’s already too late
for that. But a good faith commitment to rebuilding the infrastructure would
show that the party has some idea of the scale of the effort that’s needed
to overcome the worst downturn since the Great Depression and, ultimately,
to build an economy that offers the prospect of a decent living to the next
couple of generations.

The president was eloquent on these matters in his speech. Speaking of his
grandparents’ experiences during the 1930s, he said:* “They would tell me
about seeing their fathers or uncles losing jobs during the Depression, how
it wasn’t just the loss of a paycheck that stung. It was the blow to their
dignity, their sense of self-worth. I’ll bet a lot of us have seen people
changed after a long bout of unemployment, how it can wear down even the
strongest spirits.” *

Leaning toward the microphone, with his shirt collar unbuttoned, Mr. Obama
spoke in a way that belied his reputation for aloofness, for struggling to
connect in a visceral way with ordinary working people. He was speaking to a
pro-Obama labor gathering, so he didn’t have to win over the audience. But
if his goal was to demonstrate that he genuinely cared about the struggles
of the people in the audience and those watching on television — and about
the long-term prospects of their children and grandchildren — he largely
succeeded.

The question that remains, however, is whether he and his party will fight
with the skill and tenacity needed to guide his infrastructure proposal to
fruition, and whether they will finally focus intensely, as they should have
been doing all along, on the difficult but absolutely critical task of
putting millions of unemployed Americans back to work.

Mr. Obama seemed to take a wicked, almost Truman-ish delight in going after
the Republicans in his speech. It doesn’t matter what actions are taken or
proposed to help ordinary Americans or to rebuild the economy, he said,
“almost every Republican in Congress says no.”

In fact, he suggested, the Republican Party is committed to saying no to
absolutely anything and everything, no matter what the topic: “If I said the
sky was blue, they’d say no. If I said fish live in the sea, they’d say no.”


As if on cue, Republican leaders denounced the president’s infrastructure
plan as more “out of control” Democratic spending.

[image: DCSIMG]
[image: DCSIMG]
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