Governors Only Have Eyes For Obama

President-elect Barack Obama is often cautious to remind reporters that there is only one president at a time — and for the record, it’s still, sigh, President George W. Bush — but as far as the nation’s governors are concerned, Obama is the guy to talk to.

Obama is scheduled to attend a meeting of the National Governors Association Tuesday in Philadelphia, and the governors will reportedly be looking for a share of all that sweet, sweet federal cash spewing forth from Washington of late.

According to Reuters, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, president of the NGA, said the governors will ask for “$136 billion in infrastructure funds to stimulate the economy.”

States are also looking to the federal government to help pay for food stamps, jobless benefits and health care for the poor — projects they cannot afford due to recession, said Ed Rendell, chairman of the National Governors Association [...]

He urged the incoming Obama administration and Congress to fund $136 billion in projects that are “ready to go” in the next six months. They include shoring up an estimated 73,000 structurally deficient bridges and repairing sewers. [Emphasis added.]

Wait a minute. I must have missed this when it was previously reported, but there are 73 THOUSAND structurally deficient bridges in this country?

I’m no economist, but it seems to me that, considering the Fed is handing out money like that’s its job and it only has a half-hour to do it, and also considering the nation is hemorrhaging jobs, I’m going to have to side with Rendell on this one. It might be worthwhile to spend a small fraction of this money as a direct investment in our infrastructure, you know, to make sure another one of these 73,000 bridges doesn’t collapse with a bunch of people on it.