Bush Administration Quietly Planning NAFTA Super Highway

[The Sushi Bandit]

My Libertarian friend sent me this today.

Bush Administration Quietly Planning NAFTA Super Highway
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=15497
Human Events - June 12, 2006
Excerpt: Quietly but systematically, the Bush Administration is advancing the plan to build a huge NAFTA Super Highway, four football-fields-wide, through the heart of the U.S. along Interstate 35, from the Mexican border at Laredo, Tex., to the Canadian border north of Duluth, Minn. Once complete, the new road will allow containers from the Far East to enter the United States through the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas, bypassing the Longshoreman’s Union in the process. The Mexican trucks, without the involvement of the Teamsters Union, will drive on what will be the nation’s most modern highway straight into the heart of America. The Mexican trucks will cross border in FAST lanes, checked only electronically by the new “SENTRI” system. The first customs stop will be a Mexican customs office in Kansas City, their new Smart Port complex, a facility being built for Mexico at a cost of $3 million to the U.S. taxpayers in Kansas City.

[OzarkDem]

1. Interesting, thanks n/t

[opihimoimoi]

2. HOLY SHIT a super duper mega highway??? Gatta thimk about this one

[BonnieJW]

3. Good Grief!

Look at the website! It's totally RW extremists.

[sam sarrha]

4. the reason its 5 lanes each was is to allow another 28 million jobs to go

south... where they pay $4 a day

who has a job left to buy any more of this Chinese Sh*t... Boycot

[Emit]

5. Keep in mind who this is written by: Jerome R. Corsi

<snip>
Jerome R. Corsi
Mr. Corsi is the author of several books, including "Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry" (along with John O'Neill), "Black Gold Stranglehold: The Myth of Scarcity and the Politics of Oil" (along with Craig R. Smith), and "Atomic Iran: How the Terrorist Regime Bought the Bomb and American Politicians." He is a frequent guest on the G. Gordon Liddy radio show. He will soon co-author a new book with Jim Gilchrist on the Minuteman Project.
<snip>

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/search.php?author_name=Jerome%20R.%20Corsi

[atommom]

11. He's a lying liarmouth, but in this particular case he's right.

Even a broken clock, yada yada yada.... ;)

[SidDithers]

6. Direct link to the NASCO site...

http://www.nascocorridor.com/index.htm

Sid

Edit: though it looks like a non-profit org rather than a Bush operation.

[The Sushi Bandit]

7. 2 Mexican ports to bypass our union ports!

I worked on the Alameda Corridor project in Los Angeles - it's main benifit was to get container trucks off the freeway (realy needed cause of safety and congestion) but it is still going thru the Longshoreman at the port. (the Teamsters are pissed because of the reduced truck traffic)

[izzie]

8. All I can say is that if they by pass high wages of Union workers

this will happen. They will not need to bring in new goods we will all be in the second hand stores trading when we need different stuff. One needs the good paying wages to buy the stuff even if it is a little cheaper in cost. If it worked the other way all goods would be moving to Asia and Africa. Gee what is wrong with these people? Course their is always a credit card if China and Japan will go for it. This endless buying just may not last. And what taxes are going to build the roads?

[atommom]

12. They're privatizing it, since raising taxes was a sticking point.

The plan is to woo investors and make the superhighway a private toll road.

[izzie]

13. You still have to have a reason to bring the stuff in.

Like people with money to buy it. I wonder what Am. would say to a all private highway. They get mad about the maine toll road and that has been around for ever.

[The Sushi Bandit]

14. So they will have to stop every two miles and throw ...

money into a toll booth??

[atommom]

15. Maybe they'll use electronic tags to debit the tolls.

Many states already use those. I still have trouble seeing how the tolls could be high enough to pay for this kind of project...

[adarling]

9. this seems like the plan they have in texas for the super highway

its already in effect, and they probably tagged that idea to put this monstrosity through the whole country. I am all for getting to places quicker but man, the size is going to be huge. The plan in Texas for their "super highway" is to have one for mostly trucks, to keep them off of the main highways and interstates because it has just gotten so congested. Thats the idea for this one right? no regular traffic just commercial?

[atommom]

10. This has been in the works for a long time, but it's a massive

project that will take big bucks. Kansas City is trying to establish a port to clear shipments through customs so that they can be shipped north or south and go right over the border without stopping for clearance. This will benefit big business, but is likely to cause some problems for the rest of us.

The NAFTA highway faces quite a few hurdles, especially the massive cost. This article points out some of the issues. It stresses the problems in Indiana, but the same drama is playing out in several states.

When completed, the I-69 NAFTA Highway will connect the Mexican border at Laredo, Texas, with the Canadian border at Point Huron, Mich., as it passes through Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana.

The estimated cost for the highway project from Mexico to Canada is $10 billion. The cost to build the roughly 150 new miles of I-69 from Indianapolis to Evansville is approximately $2 billion — less than 1 percent of the total pavement; more than 20 percent of the total cost.

The two previous Indiana governors (both Democrats) spent a total of 13 years and nearly $30 million in state taxpayer funds promoting the new-terrain I-69. In that same time period, 94 percent of citizens who submitted public comments to state leaders about the extension of I-69 did so to express opposition.

In 1998, NBC Nightly News called the new terrain I-69 highway from Indianapolis to Evansville “a fleecing that would take you and your tax dollars for a billion-dollar ride” as part of its “Fleecing of America” series. During the segment, Tom Brokaw noted that $34 million in federal tax dollars had already been spent “on a road where not one teacup of concrete had been poured.” That was eight years ago. Conservatively, Indiana has now spent a minimum of $75 million in taxpayer dollars for a road that does not yet exist.

http://www.nuvo.net/archive/2006/03/15/highway_to_hell.html

[The Sushi Bandit]

16. Really???

what a waste!

[eppur_se_muova]

17. Great timing--take advantage of all that cheap oil.

:sarcasm: (I can't believe there are people who actually need that smiley, but experience has taught me to expect so.)

[checks-n-balances]

18. Kick! Thom Hartmann just mentioned this

and referenced this same article written by Swiftboater John Corsi, of all people. I googled Nafta Superhighway, and bloggers/journalists of all stripes have written about it; I never heard about it until today, probably because - as the article says - it's being promoted QUIETLY by GWB. That's probably the only reason this hasn't been a political bombshell on the level of the Dubai Ports issue a few months ago...YET. We need to get the word out.

BTW, thank you for starting this thread!

NAFTA Superhighways Threaten North America

Many realize that NAFTA÷affecting the U.S., Canada and Mexico÷has caused a corporate exodus to the south, robbing the U.S. of over 600,000 jobs.

But this new, lesser-known NAFTA-related scheme could possibly be even more disastrous than the trade agreement itself. Yet the media outside Indiana have generally steered clear of this international issue. <SNIP>

...'it is the (great sucking) sound of corporate America gravitating toward this international trade corridor. It is the surge of products moving to market and the sound of money filling corporate coffers... It is the free enterprise system at work.' <SNIP>

Majority Whip Tom Delay has also been a major NAFTA Superhighway supporter. As a senior member of the Appropriations Subcommittee, he doles out federal highway money. His brother, Randy, a $300,000 per year highway lobbyist for the I-69, helped organize Texas fund raisers for Shuster.

More at: http://www.imaja.com/as/environment/cars/SuperhighwaysThreatenNA.html

[The Sushi Bandit]

20. Kick

this is important

[AzDar]

19. kick...n/t