Obama vows Eisenhower-like infrastructure investment

President-elect Obama on Saturday promised to make the largest new investment in the nation’s infrastructure since President Eisenhower established the
Interstate Highway System in the 1950s.

In his weekly radio address, Obama said his economic package would “help save or create at least two and a half million jobs, while rebuilding our infrastructure, improving our schools, reducing our dependence on oil, and saving billions of dollars.”

{mosads}Obama described his economic plan a day after the government reported that 533,000 jobs were lost in November, the worst job loss in 34 years. The news jolted lawmakers on Friday to consider more closely a way to send billions in taxpayer dollars to the Big Three automakers to support an industry employing millions of Americans.

The president-elect’s economic package will have five main components: making public buildings more energy efficient; investing in infrastructure on the order of the 1950s-era interstate highway system; upgrading school buildings; expanding broadband Internet access; and, making the healthcare industry more technologically advanced.

“We need action – and action now,” Obama said.

“We won’t do it the old Washington way,” Obama said. “We won’t just throw money at the problem. We’ll measure progress by the reforms we make and the results we achieve – by the jobs we create, by the energy we save, by whether America is more competitive in the world.”

Estimates from outside economists and members of Congress for an economic stimulus package have ranged from $400 billion to $700 billion

“We need to act with the urgency this moment demands to save or create at least two and a half million jobs so that the nearly two million Americans who’ve lost them know that they have a future,” Obama said.