Obama, governors share plans for boosting public-works jobs

"We hope that is an inspiration to the federal government and the Obama administration to do the same thing nationwide," he said. The California Legislature "also [just] approved an additional $10 million in high-speed rail, which I think is another important thing, because I think there's no reason we in America should be traveling at the same speed as we did 100 years ago."

Governor Schwarzenegger said the $136 billion in infrastructure improvements could be started within months of the Obama administration taking office, creating tens of thousands of jobs, if the funding were made available.

In talking with reporters after the meeting, Obama's pick for chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, noted that some of the infrastructure projects under discuss involve advances in technology. "Some [governors] talked about what I would call the infrastructure for a 21st-century economy: medical [information technology], broadband. A lot of the infrastructure was around green technology, some on ... high-speed rail [and] mass transit," Mr. Emanuel said, according to a pool report.

Rendell noted that some of those projects and others could be started soon if the federal government reduced red tape. "We also discussed that if you could cut through some of the federal regulations, or speed up some of the permitting and review processes, we could get more ready-to-go projects off the table more quickly," he said.

The governors showed "almost unanimously" their support of Obama's recovery plan and offered to reach out to their citizens and congressional delegations to win passage, Rendell said.

But there were some dissenting voices. Govs. Mark Sanford (R) of South Carolina and Sarah Palin (R) of Alaska said they were philosophically opposed to increasing the federal deficit to stimulate the economy. Many of the current economic problems were created by fiscal irresponsibility, they said.

"Can we indeed solve the problems that were ultimately created by too much debt by adding more debt?" Governor Sanford said. "There are legitimate questions ... about whether this indeed will make a difference."

During the meeting, Obama reportedly noted that economists, even those who had advised Republican presidential hopeful John McCain, had "near unanimity" that concerns about debt should be secondary to the need to generate economic growth with a stimulus package.

Rendell then asked if any governor was willing to forgo federal help to help reduce the deficit. None stepped up to take the challenge.

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