With the midterm elections completed and the Congressional lame duck session underway, Americans are looking for a fresh approach to infrastructure investment at the federal level. ASCE hopes that the new Congress will respond to our nation’s infrastructure needs with compromise and urgency before May, when the Highway Trust Fund will once again become insolvent.
In order to make progress in revitalizing infrastructure, bipartisan compromise between the White House and Congress is necessary.
ASCE Senior Managing Director, Casey Dinges, told Wired that there are reasons to be optimistic that the new Congress will address infrastructure spending. Among these are the decrease in gas prices, lack of recent productivity and existing Congressional support for funding infrastructure. According to Dinges, even the conservative US Chamber of Commerce supports raising the gas tax as a “smart, fair and achievable way” to meet funding needs.
Representative John Delaney is hopeful for bipartisan support when it comes to improving our infrastructure.
In The Hill, Delaney points to the Partnership to Build America Act (PBAA), which has support from Republicans and Democrats, as an innovative financing tool to create a large-scale infrastructure fund that is funded by selling infrastructure bonds to private companies, rather than increasing taxes or additional spending. Congressman Delaney noted that the PBAA would be a solid step towards infrastructure improvement that “brings together good ideas from both sides of the aisle.”
Bipartisanship, compromise and collaboration are key if we are going to address our nation’s infrastructure needs and #FixtheTrustFund.
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This article is researched and spot-on.
Those who support keeping giant public utilities funded by taxes ought rather to think proactively for individual households’ / Apartment houses’ self sustainability.
No matter which political party you affiliate yourself with, this issue confronts elimination of desperate people……….. either renters or homeowners.
By collecting rain into underground over sized steel tanks with new home construction, those mandates will save cities and towns unnecessary worry should disaster strike.
Long handled (36 “) double acting hydraulic hand pumps work, should solar collectors get damaged or are destroyed.
Water is essential to life.
Every on- grid household is subject to the utilities’ lack of due diligence for above ground disrepair of any kind.
It is wise to consider off grid for houses for water and electric, as we have seen even with our food being grown by Corporations, GMO foods are filtering into our food supply whether we like this or not.
Only people who will build a greenhouse in their back yard are less susceptible. However, what about the poor who did not grow up on a farm, nor have a backyard to feed themselves or collect rainwater for themselves?
A great article , Olivia !