This plan has gained support from influential political figures around the country, such as the California and Pennsylvania governors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ed Rendell, respectively, as well as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

In many ways, the president’s plan sounds like a good idea. The nation needs transportation repair desperately and the sweeping repairs Obama described certainly would require the creation of more jobs. It’s possible it could bring up the national economy as a whole. However, such an extensive and expensive plan might be too much, too soon.

Though there are obviously problems with the current system for building and repairing means of transportation, jumping into a brand new system headlong probably would not produce the desired effect immediately. Fixing a problem takes time, even more so on a national level. When a proposal of this scale is made it should be weighed against other options before it is fully enacted.

The main motive behind the proposal is to stimulate the economy and create jobs that might not have otherwise existed. Although this goal is a good one and could potentially move the U.S. into a better economic position as a nation, that outcome is never a guarantee. The economy is typically slow to change, even with the onset of new jobs.

It is also difficult to see the tangible effects of a big government plan on the economy even after it is put into action. The stimulus package enacted by Obama and Congress has been in place since 2009 and it is still uncertain what the long term effect it will have. Another massive influx of money should not be pumped into the economy until a greater understanding of the effects of the stimulus package and other recent attempts to restore the U.S. economy have been analyzed.

Should the proposal of this transportation rebuilding and government-run bank go through and then not make as much money as expected, the government would have a much larger issue to deal with. The bank in question would presumably take its funds partly from investors and partly from tax dollars. Projects funded by the bank would be selected by a panel of specialists.

If a project funded by the bank were to fall through, or if it didn’t make as much money as expected, the government would have to pay back the investors — an action that would require a tax increase across the board. Though it seems as though the bank is a more streamlined way to spend government money, it is still important to remember the money funding this project would be primarily coming from taxpayer’s pockets.

With elections coming up in the next few weeks, Congress will most likely not rush through a plan of this magnitude. However, that doesn’t mean the idea is going to go away anytime soon. The proposal is starting to gain support and is becoming a topic of debate among political figures. Other politicians are already starting to come up with alternative plans that would encompass other public issues as well as transportation such as green energy, telecommunications and water usage.
In the long run, Obama’s new transportation and government-run bank plan has potential, but it is not an idea that should be rushed into action.

Until it is known whether the benefits of enacting this plan would outweigh the costs, the government needs to step back and make sure any large scale proposals put into place are what’s best for the economy and the country as a whole.

Lauren Gibbons is a State News staff writer. Reach her at gibbon52@msu.edu.