Analysis of the non-binding House budget resolution
shows how unfriendly House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan and his
Republican colleagues are to the construction businesses in this country. The
budget cuts transportation funding 36% from its already inadequate levels, to a
mere $31.5 billion, and cuts natural resources and environmental construction
funding by 10% to $3.5 billion. According to National Association of Clean
Water Agencies Legislative Affairs Director Pat Sinicropi, the Clean Water and
Safe Drinking Water State Revolving Fund would have to significantly reduce the
number and value of water related construction projects in the coming years.
With unemployment in the construction sector of our
economy still running at more than double the rate of overall unemployment, and
with skilled tradespeople being driven into other lines of work in order to
feed their families, the impact of these cuts on construction businesses will
be felt painfully in both the short and long term. While Senate appropriation
measures could prove somewhat more generous that this depressing House blueprint
for federal construction funding, the Ryan budget measure is one more example
of the preference our elected leaders have for election campaign rhetoric over
real solutions to the country’s very real economic difficulties.
If our Senators and Congressmen spent half as much
time doing real work towards development of some real job creating legislation
as they spend on the floors of their respective chambers slashing each other’s
meaningless proposed bills embodying campaign talking points, we might see some
job creation and rising economic activity years sooner than is likely in the
present gridlocked condition of government in Washington, D.C.
