Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Infrastructurist: Obama’s Infrastructure Stimulus: What We Know Now
http://www.infrastructurist.com/2010/09/07/obamas-infrastructure-stimulus-what-we-know-now/
Yesterday was a major day for infrastructure. The president went big with a series of proposals to stimulate the economy by massively overhauling the nation’s roads, rail system, and air travel. Specifically, we’re talking about rebuilding 150,000 miles of road, laying and maintaining 4,000 miles of new rail track, restoring 150 miles of runways, and getting NextGen, the modern air-traffic control system, going in our major airports. All of this would cost around $350 billion over the next six years or so, and funding would be kick started by $50 billion in initial investment from the feds.
The announcement was a huge victory for the National Infrastructure Bank, the project that’s had bi-partisan support for a while now from big names like Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg. Basically the project has been swimming around the halls of Congress for several years, but has lacked the clear political will to get it formed. Rendell, Schwarzenegger, and others have been on a major push to get an NIB formed ever since Obama took office — they should consider this a clear (if not absolute) victory for their cause.
Another victor was the construction industry, which has been hemorrhaging jobs throughout the recession, and has seen some of the weakest recovery, with over 1.5 million construction workers still jobless. The president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, Terry O’Sullivan, has already come out praising the proposals, saying, “President Obama’s plan for getting our economy moving again by putting men and women back to work building America’s critical infrastructure – our roads, rail and airports – is exactly what our nation needs.”
Plenty of questions are still up in the air — the largest (and most politically contentious) being how the president plans to pay for all this. The dominant theory right now is that the administration will call for reauthorization of the transportation funding bill (which was scheduled to expire last year, and which has been extended for short periods to keep transportation funding from halting completely). Another question is how the infrastructure bank would be structured — as we’ve said before, there are plenty of problems waiting to strike in a project like this, and organization can be crucial.
Tomorrow Obama will offer more complete details of his plan, and likely stir more partisan debate. Look for more news and analysis here once the announcement is live.