Leaving aside the current 1.2 trillion dollar bill does nothing significant towards this goal, lets analyze the current actual infrastructure and road situation.

I have driven now about 35 of the States, with a few sections of the deep NE and the traditional south being the exceptions, of course Hawaii and Alaska are not on the list either.

So in my own way I can testify to the condition of roads. I added up my driving to a total of 35,000 miles in the last 5 months. I have driven the length of I-90, I-84, and many other interstates, as well as US highways and State Highways.

For example tonight I am driving from Fort Dodge IA to Cheyenne IA. This is taking me down State Highways, best described as Rural Highways. I stopped for a little on route to post this as I have time to burn tonight, and a desire to post this.

The 'state' of our roads is at best exaggerated. I have found few States with severe road problems, most of the bad roads being in Illinois, Oregon, and New York (They are not crumbling, just a maze, and the drivers there... they will cut you off if they think there is 3 inches room between you and the guy in front of you extra beyond the length of their car... or semi truck!!! But I stress it is a maze of bridges over bridges leading to bridges... I think they need Paul Bunyan.)

The vast majority of the roads are in pretty decent shape. Now then there is some bad stretches, but the amount of construction is in line with the amount of work needing to be done.

There are roads with the square segments, which make your vehicle bounce, but that's manageable. There are some roads with truck grooves, but there is construction before/after those segments where they are repaving such roads already.

I can understand why California has budget issues, they turned every state highway in the valleys into an interstate, but with their population it should be manageable. Indeed their roads are top shape right now.

So I can say this, our roads are not dying by the droves.

Now for infrastructure.

One of the biggest proposed is Schools, though not on the spending bill... hmm...

Home schooling represents 1.5 million minors in the United States right now
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2009030
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_the_United_States

This is up 74% from 1999.

And yet there is 82 million students
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_of_the_united_states

There was 76 million students at 1999, so this means there is a net increase of about 5 million students

At this time there is just over a million charter school spots, which has come about in the past 9 years, therefore we now have a net gain of 4 million.

This represents a 5% increase in the total number of students.

Yet from 1999 to 2004 (NOT THE FULL RANGE) total spending increased by 20%
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2007/tables/07s0205.xls

Therefore according to the math we have already easily spent out all the money needed to handle this increase.

So where is the emergency?

In 'Strengths of Their Own', Dr. Ray found the average cost per homeschool student is $546 while the average cost per public school student is $5,325. Yet the homeschool children in this study averaged in 85th percentile while the public school students averaged in the 50th percentile on nationally standardized achievement tests.

Similarly, the 1998 study by Dr. Rudner of 20,760 students, found that eighth grade students whose parents spend $199 or less on their home education score, on the average, in the 80th percentile. Eighth grade students whose parents spend $400 to $599 on their home education also score on the average, in the 80th percentile! Once the parents spend over $600, the students do slightly better, scoring in the 83rd percentile. (Rudner, Home Schooling Works: The Scholastic Achievement and Demographic Characteristics of Home School Students in 1998)

The message is loud and clear. More money does not mean a better education. There is no positive correlation between money spent on education and student performance. Public school advocates could refocus their emphasis if they learned this lesson.

So this is why the Democrats are not spending money on the campaign promises? Or is it because they have pork ship (forget barrel, a barrel could never hold that much pork) spending to do first?

So what other infrastructure do we need?

There has been talk of bridges. And frankly I agree that those are good. But after the panic from the one bridge collapsing they checked ALL bridges and tunnels and those in danger were found to have already been listed as in danger, and funds were put to fix them by the States commonly, feds in a few cases, and they got, or are getting, fixed.

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Now lets review the spending bill

There's $1 billion for Amtrak, the federal railroad that hasn't turned a profit in 40 years; $2 billion for child-care subsidies; $50 million for that great engine of job creation, the National Endowment for the Arts; $400 million for global-warming research and another $2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects.

Some $30 billion, or less than 5% of the spending in the bill, is for fixing bridges or other highway projects. There's another $40 billion for broadband and electric grid development, airports and clean water projects that could be argued as worthwhile priorities.

Most of the rest of this project spending will go to such things as renewable energy funding ($8 billion) or mass transit ($6 billion) that have a low or negative return on investment. Most urban transit systems are so badly managed that their fares cover less than half of their costs. However, the people who operate these systems belong to public-employee unions that are campaign contributors to . . . guess which party?

Here's another lu-lu: Congress wants to spend $600 million more for the federal government to buy new cars. Uncle Sam already spends $3 billion a year on its fleet of 600,000 vehicles. Congress also wants to spend $7 billion for modernizing federal buildings and facilities. The Smithsonian is targeted to receive $150 million; we love the Smithsonian, too, but this is a job creator?

Another "stimulus" secret is that some $252 billion is for income-transfer payments -- that is, not investments that arguably help everyone, but cash or benefits to individuals for doing nothing at all. There's $81 billion for Medicaid, $36 billion for expanded unemployment benefits, $20 billion for food stamps, and $83 billion for the earned income credit for people who don't pay income tax. While some of that may be justified to help poorer Americans ride out the recession, they aren't job creators.

As for the promise of accountability, some $54 billion will go to federal programs that the Office of Management and Budget or the Government Accountability Office have already criticized as "ineffective" or unable to pass basic financial audits. These include the Economic Development Administration, the Small Business Administration, the 10 federal job training programs, and many more.

Oh, and don't forget education, which would get $66 billion more. That's more than the entire Education Department spent a mere 10 years ago and is on top of the doubling under President Bush. Some $6 billion of this will subsidize university building projects. If you think the intention here is to help kids learn, the House declares on page 257 that "No recipient . . . shall use such funds to provide financial assistance to students to attend private elementary or secondary schools." Horrors: Some money might go to nonunion teachers.

This is supposed to be a new era of bipartisanship, but this bill was written based on the wish list of every living -- or dead -- Democratic interest group. As Speaker Nancy Pelosi put it, "We won the election. We wrote the bill." So they did. Republicans should let them take all of the credit.

----- Republicans were not allowed to write one thing, or edit anything, or object to inclusion of any part, they were only given the chance to VOTE no...

So when you think on this stuff, think hard.