Transcontinental Railroads

Great Republican Presidents And Infrastructure Investment In The Future

As we come up on Presidents Day Weekend and Week, it is a good time to reflect on the record of the most outstanding Republican Presidents, and how they made great investments in infrastructure, in many ways their greatest contribution.

Abraham Lincoln made the building of the transcontinental railroad a high priority, although the Civil War slowed up the completion of the project, the finishing of the Union Pacific Railroad, to the year 1869, four years after his death. He saw the transcontinental railroad as a promoter of economic growth, and to make America truly a nation unified by a massive transportation system.

Dwight D. Eisenhower saw the importance of the development of the Interstate Highway System, and committed to it in the 1950s, as a way to promote economic growth and national security, and the continuous expansion of that system is a testimony to his commitment to this greatest of all public works projects.

Theodore Roosevelt saw the preservation of the environment through the building of a great national park system as good for the unity and growth of the nation, and he presided over the quadrupling of the our parks and other nature sites as the long range commitment to our future, as a nation which cared about its natural resources and respected the significance of nature.

Each of these three greatest Republican Presidents, about 40-50 years apart in their Presidencies, made a contribution to the future of our nation which cannot be measured by normal parameters. No wonder they are ranked as among the top ten Presidents in polls of intelligent observers of the office of the American Presidency!

Time To Face Reality: Education, Infrastructure, And Climate Change Legislation Is Urgent For America’s Future!

The Republican Party has been fighting mightily against investments in education, infrastructure, and climate change, and now Hurricane Sandy makes clear that we can no longer have the privilege of allowing that party to destroy America’s future!

Education spending MUST go up, and we must make education of all kinds a priority if we are to compete with other nations that are passing us by!

We also have a desperate need for investments in rebuilding and expanding infrastructure all over the nation, just as Abraham Lincoln promoted the transcontinental railroad system, and Dwight D. Eisenhower advocated the interstate highway system, these two events a century apart!

And we must face that climate change and global warming are accelerating, and failure to do anything about it will doom this nation in the long run!

To be an ostrich with its head in the sand is self destructive, and the Know Nothings among us must be cast aside, and we must move into the future potential of the nation as soon as possible after the inauguration of the President in January, 2013!