President’s Address Includes Infrastructure
March 1st, 2017 | By: Becky Moylan
On Tuesday night, President Trump addressed a joint-session of Congress for the first time in his presidency. Infrastructure was among the many issues he discussed. The President highlighted the interstate highway system as a the “last truly great national infrastructure program,” before calling for a “new program of national rebuilding” and vowing to ask Congress to pass legislation for $1 trillion in infrastructure investment, “financed through both public and private capital.” Infrastructure investment was one of the President’s core campaign promises. While there still needs to be much more shared about the infrastructure legislation described, including what the mix of public and private capital will be and how this investment will be allocated across our nation’s significant infrastructure needs, this is an encouraging step toward fulfilling what the President pledged during the campaign. The speech came just 10 days before ASCE will release its new 2017 Infrastructure Report Card. The report will again provide grades and analysis of 16 categories of infrastructure and offer key solutions and category solutions to raise the grades. One of the core solutions you can expect to read and hear about is the need for investment, and even more specifically government funding. To have lasting progress for our infrastructure, the federal government must commit to not only financing infrastructure programs but funding them. Funding must supplement – rather than replace – long-term solutions, regular appropriations, and scheduled reauthorizations. This tenet is one ASCE also focuses on in its Principles for Infrastructure Investment, released during the Presidential Transition. Americans recognize our infrastructure needs are significant—a new investment gap number will also be released on March 9 in the Report Card. They are also solvable, beginning with federal infrastructure legislation that:- Includes investment that provides substantial, long-term benefits to the public and the economy;
- considers the cost of an infrastructure project over its entire life span;
- ensures projects are built sustainably and resiliently;
- does not replace existing federal, state, local, or private infrastructure funding.
Infrastructure Quotes from the State of the Union
January 22nd, 2015 | By: Infrastructure Report Card
The State of the Union is the time for some of the most pressing issues of the day to be highlighted, and infrastructure certainly made the list in the 2015 State of the Union. Here is what the President had to say about America’s infrastructure:
We gave our citizens schools and colleges, infrastructure and the Internet, tools they needed to go as far as their efforts and their dreams will take them. That’s what middle-class economics is: the idea that this country does best when everyone gets their fair shot, everyone does their fair share, everyone plays by the same set of rules.
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That’s why the third part of middle-class economics is all about building the most competitive economy anywhere, the place where businesses want to locate and hire.
21st century businesses need 21st century infrastructure: modern ports, and stronger bridges, faster trains and the fastest Internet.
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Democrats and Republicans used to agree on this. So let’s set our sights higher than a single oil pipeline; let’s pass a bipartisan …
… infrastructure plan that could create more than 30 times as many jobs per year and make this country stronger for decades to come.
Let’s do it. Let’s get it done.
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Now, the truth is when it comes to issues like infrastructure and basic research, I know there’s bipartisan support in this chamber. Members of both parties have told me so.
Where we too often run onto the rocks is how to pay for these investments. As Americans, we don’t mind paying our fair share of taxes, as long as everybody else does too.
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That’s why the third part of middle-class economics is all about building the most competitive economy anywhere, the place where businesses want to locate and hire.
21st century businesses need 21st century infrastructure: modern ports, and stronger bridges, faster trains and the fastest Internet.
Listen to the full 2015 State of the Union address here.
Tags: congress, infrastructure, President, SOTU
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