State of Illinois secondary Archives: on Environment

Mark Kirk: Stimulus should've funded Mississippi dams & O'Hare projects

KIRK: One of the tragedies of the stimulus was that it limited projects to shovel ready projects. Which means no big pay-off projects, which, for example, in Illinois would have been fully funding the O'Hare Modernization Project. Or a new lock and dam system for Mississippi River.

Q: You believe that should have been funded?

KIRK: If that was funded, we would have a long term economic payoff. Instead wha happened is, especially the House Appropriations Committee, which largely wrote most of the legislation, was told to spend nearly a trillion dollars. And take nearly every discarded social spending program off the table. Remember, every dollar by this Congress, 40% is borrowed. Most of it from abroad. We have to borrow $160 billion a week to make sure the Treasury doesn't run out of money. That is irresponsible in my view. And a growing chorus of people think that that is also completely unsustainable