Please, call it what it is….a BAILOUT!

Big city mayors visited Capitol Hill Monday to urge congressional leaders to pass a Main Street Recovery plan funding “shovel-ready” infrastructure projects during the first 100 days of President-elect Barack Obama’s administration.

According to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, there are 11,391 infrastructure projects ready to go in 427 cities across the United States. The conference estimates that these projects represent an infrastructure investment of $73 billion that would be capable of producing an estimated 847,641 jobs in 2009 and 2010.

“We are not here for a bailout. We’re here to help build out America,” Manny Diaz, the mayor of Miami and president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, said at a press conference on Monday attended by a dozen U.S. mayors.

Everybody is seeing dollar signs dance around their heads.