Quoted Text

Bridge crisis could be sign of things to come
Legislators list 110 spans in state rated as bad or worse than Champlain

Capitol bureau
Last updated: 4:01 p.m., Tuesday, November 10, 2009

ALBANY -- Sounding the alarm on the urgent need to address the state's crumbling bridges, several upstate legislators held a press conference this morning to point out that the closure of the Champlain Bridge connecting Crown Point and Vermont could be repeated dozens of times in communities all around the state unless swift action is taken.


Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=863953#ixzz0WVmRssO6

Quoted from bumblethru

Wasn't our stimulus money suppose to go toward infrastructure? Bridges, roads etc.......?

Quoted Text

Biden to Oversee Your Stimulus Dollars
By Paul Bedard
Posted February 23, 2009
As part of his effort to guide the spending of the nearly $800 billion stimulus package, President Obama has established a Web page, http://www.recovery.gov, to let Americans see where their tax dollars are going. And today he announced he's put Vice President Joe Biden in charge of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Earl Devaney is responsible for keeping track of every dollar as the head of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board. Devaney has been the inspector general of the Interior Department since 1999.

Quoted Text

Biden to oversee stimulus implementation
Published: Feb. 23, 2009 at 3:53 PM

WASHINGTON, Feb. 23 (UPI) -- U.S. Vice President Joe Biden will oversee the administration's implementation of its $787 billion economic stimulus plan, President Barack Obama said Monday.

As part of that oversight, Interior Department Inspector General Earl Devanay was appointed to lead the Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board to oversee the administration's implementation of the Recovery Act's provisions, Obama said during remarks before the nation's governors visiting the White House.

Biden will meet regularly with key members of Obama's Cabinet, governors and mayors to ensure their efforts to implement the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act are fast and efficient, the White House said. Biden will provide regular, public reports to the president on implementation and post his reports on Recovery.gov, a Web site that allows visitors track where the money from the stimulus package is going, the White House added.

"The fact that I am asking the vice president to personally lead this effort shows how important it is for our country and our future to get this right," Obama said.

Commenting on Devanay, Obama said, "I can't think of a more tenacious and efficient guardian of the hard-earned tax dollars the American people have entrusted us to wisely invest."

Quoted Text

DiNapoli: Highway fund tapped out by other uses
By Elizabeth Moore Newsday, Melville, N.Y.
Publication: Newsday (Melville, New York)
Date: Friday, October 30 2009
You are viewing page 1
Oct. 30--It was created in 1991 as a "lockbox" to assure that highway and motor vehicle taxes were used for pay-as-you-go improvements to the state's deteriorating highways and bridges.

Instead, almost two-thirds of the money put into the state's Dedicated Highway and Bridge Trust Fund has
been spent on other things, including debt service and general operations at the Department of Transportation, state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said Thursday. At a news conference in Mineola, DiNapoli called the practice "highway robbery."

The state's budget process should include a plan to return the fund to its original purpose, he urged.

"This money should be going toward keeping our roads and bridges safe, not to fund state agency operations," DiNapoli said. He noted the recent closing of the Crown Point Bridge connecting New York and Vermont as evidence of the urgent need for highway funding.

"Using this dedicated capital money to pay for operations and debt service is just one more gimmick on the list of New York's bad fiscal choices," he said.

The construction industry hailed the creation of the trust fund in 1991 as a way to provide a reliable income stream for highway rehabilitation that would avoid costly bond debt.

But starting just three years later, the Legislature changed the law so it could be tapped to pay debt service for bonds issued by the Thruway Authority that were never approved by voters, according to a report DiNapoli issued Thursday. In 2001, the law was amended again to allow the fund to be used for Department of Motor Vehicles operating expenses and for snow and ice removal.

So much debt was piled onto the fund that the general fund has had to be tapped to meet the fund's obligations, the report noted. That burden on the general fund is expected to total $3.9 billion over the next five years.

"It was a lockbox with keys that were given to everybody," said Mark Herbst, director of the Long Island Contractors' Association, who praised DiNapoli's report. "This has to stop."

Quoted from bumblethru

Perhaps there should be an audit done for the state. And not by cuomo.

I would also like to know, that IF obamacare does goes through, what happens to our state, taxpaid insurance coverage....such as but not exclusive to 'child care plus'?

I would guess that these programs would disappear. If that is the case, than what happens to all of the extra taxes imposed on products, such as the huge cigarette tax?

We continue to get tax and fee increases and yet the state continues to financially decline.