In 1956, President Dwight Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act. At the time, the plan was pitched as a military necessity: We needed highways to move convoys during a time of war. The inital price tag? $25 billion dollar, or, some $160 billion in 2008 dollars. Eventually, the interstate highway system would be developed over decades at a cost of more than $400 billion in today's dollars.
That's what I call big government spending.
In spite of the detractors (and there certainly are many), it is undeniable that American highways have had a profoundly positive impact the nation as a whole. Beginning in the late 1950's, we could travel faster, cheaper, and more safely. But the economic benefits - benefits that we continue to realize today - have been enormous.
In every industry, the interstate highway system has lowered production and distribution costs. In every decade since the beginning of the federal government's investment in highways began, such investments have made significant contributions to the growth of our economy. In many rural areas, well-planned highways have spurred economic growth. My hometown, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, has benefited dramatically from it's location along I-81 and I-70.
Eisenhower himself had the forethought to see that a massive government investment in our highways could yield tremendously positive results. Eisenhower, writing in 1963, noted:
More than any single action by the government since the end of the war, this one would change the face of America. Its impact on the American economy — the jobs it would produce in manufacturing and construction, the rural areas it would open up — was beyond calculation.
Logan Thomas Snyder, writing in American History Magazine in 2006, may have put it best:
For all its detractors’ criticism, the interstate system, more than any other project in the past 50 years, has encouraged an unprecedented democratization of mobility. It has opened up access to an array of goods and services previously unavailable to many and created massive opportunities for five decades and three generations of Americans. It has made the country more accessible to itself while also making it safer and more secure, outcomes that in almost any other undertaking would prove mutually exclusive.
So let's get a few things straight. Eisenhower was a Republican. Eisenhower was also a man with great vision and big ideas. He realized that, in some situations, it was necessary for the government to spend serious money. And that, if done correctly, such spending could yield incredibly positive results.
Still, the Republicans on tv - from Bobby Jindal to John Boehner to Tom Delay - are selling that same old tired, Republican meme: Government is the enemy; government spending is treason. We all know that's bullshit. Saying that Bobby Jindal is a smart guy is an understatement: the man was a Rhodes Scholar for God's sake. Yet he insists on pointing to the failures of government during 8 years of a failed Bush Administration... including his fantastical account of a conversation with Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee... as evidence that the government is just plain and simple bad news. That anybody who says the government can help is a liar and a thief and should be shot. That the government has never done anything but stand in the way.
Well what about Ike, Mr. Jindal? What about big government, billion-dollar interstate highway system Dwight D. Eisenhower? Wasn't he a Republican? Weren't Republicans just championing this guy 2 weeks ago when those newest presidential rankings were released? Isn't this guy a Republican icon?
Oh, I get it. Ike spent too much money; he liked government too much; he just got in the way. He wasn't a real Republican.
Guess you should throw him under the bus.