The White House released the following statement regarding its new recovery plan: “The President today laid out a bold vision for renewing and expanding our transportation infrastructure – in a plan that combines a long-term vision for the future with new investments. A significant portion of the new investments would be front-loaded in the first year.”
This front load is worth $50 billion…a lot of money…but an insignificant amount compared to the size of what is needed. It is not a bold vision it is a very timid vision. Don’t believe me? Ask the American Society of Civil Engineers. In its 2009 Infrastructure Report Card, it gave a D average to US infrastructures and recommended $2.2 trillion of dollars of spending over the next 5 years. And that is just to bring current infrastructures back to good condition; trillions more are needed to respond to growing needs.
Money is not a problem for the federal government, all this could be started tomorrow like we have done to finance wars, bail outs the financial sector and other wasteful items. We did it before, when the country had a truly bold vision and was much less wealthy, and we could do it again. Besides current infrastructures, we need to start to use our underused resources (especially labor) to address the future needs of our aging population and our environmental problems: education, infrastructure, social networks, technology, energy, food production, and many others sectors need help.
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