Earlier this week, President Bush gave an all-too-familiar thumbs down to an appeal by a bi-partisan delegation of the nation’s governors to “increase spending on roads, bridges and other public works” as an economic stimulus. www.nytimes.com/2008/02/26/us/26govs.html? Just a week ago in an address to a national “Pathway to Prosperity” conference on infrastructure at Iona College in New York, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney dramatized how badly seven years of such rejections from Bush have damaged the backbone of our country.
“I want to add a couple of personal end notes to what has been said about the infrastructure crisis,” Sweeney told a bi-partisan audience which had just heard pleas for infrastructure investment from the likes of Susan Eisenhower, President of the Eisenhower Group, Representative Jim Oberstar (D-MN), who chairs the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, former congressmen Harold Ford, Jr. (D-TN) and Dick Gephardt (D-MO), and former governors George Pataki ®-NY) and John Engler (R-MI).
“The first end note concerns the crumbling, outdated, poorly heated, rarely cooled, ill-equipped public schools which are the shame of our nation. We learned about the situation in our schools way back in 1995 —- 25,000 schools crying out for repair, renovation or replacement, air unfit to breathe in 15,000 schools, $112 billion needed to bring existing buildings up to minimum building standards. And those numbers have gone up since then, not down.
“A few weeks ago, I took a tour of Cardozo High School — one of the most historic schools in Washington, DC. It was an embarrassment. Paint peeling. Kids sitting in classes in coats because the heat doesn’t work. Walls crumbling. A gymnasium that can’t be used. The principal told me that when she arrived for the start of the school year last fall, not a single bathroom was operational.
“Whatever we do, let’s keep schools at the top of our list. This isn’t just a struggle about bricks and mortar, it’s personal — we’re condemning our children to crumbling schools, instead of an environment that enables them to learn, and our nation needs every ounce of their brainpower and talent.
“The second end note I want to add is about the urgency of bridge repair. Earlier this year, MSNBC compiled a special report on bridge inspections. They found out that the Federal Highway Administrator’s route to work crossed one of the substandard bridges in Washington, DC, so they built a website with a map where you can insert the beginning and the end of your own personal route to work and find out how many unsafe bridges carrying 10,000 cars or more per day you may be crossing.
“Since I was coming to work from Washington to New Rochelle this morning, I asked my staff to check out my route. We found that traveling the I-95 corridor between Washington, DC and New York City, I would cross or come within two-tenths of a mile of 30 bridges that are rated either functionally obsolete or structurally deficient. But it gets worse, For the rest of the trip, from New York City to New Rochelle, you travel across 30 additional bridges, and all but two of those 30 bridges are either functionally obsolete or structurally deficient.
“I decided to fly up – it seemed safer. But I still had to use about 20 of those bridges when taking a car from LaGuardia. Brothers and sisters, we have 17,000 bridges in this country that are behind on inspections, so we don’t know about all the dangers that are lurking. We have to give the Federal Highway Administration a mandate to inspect, a mission to rebuild and repair, and the money to back it up.”
Sweeney went on to say that what’s needed for our country is a long-range comprehensive infrastructure plan and he called on organizations as disparate as the National Association of Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO to link arms in the venture.
“Is there reason to believe we can come together around a comprehensive infrastructure plan and actually succeed? I believe the uncertain moment we’re living in as a nation could provide an opportunity. Call it an economic downturn, call it a cooling off, or call it a recession, but we’re dealing with an economy that needs long-term as well as short-term stimulus, and what Congress and the President have agreed upon so far is billions of dollars short of what’s needed.
“Many of the individuals and organizations in this room supported funding for infrastructure projects as a part of the first stimulus bill. We were disappointed they didn’t make the cut because we all know infrastructure projects are the best way to create good jobs that stimulate our economy and meet urgent needs at the same time. If we seize the moment, I can think of nothing more likely to bring Americans from all walks of life together at a time when political and economic forces are pulling us apart.
“The undertaking I’m describing will take years and years to develop and implement and it will cost many billions of dollars beyond the normal sources of funding we now depend upon. One of the ways to raise the capital for a long-term, comprehensive program is through a mechanism like the one included in the Dodd-Hagel National Infrastructure Act — which is now stuck in the House Banking Committee. That legislation would establish a National Infrastructure Bank to finance substantial infrastructure project with public and private capital, above and beyond existing grants and earmarks.
“I understand that both Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton have included similar proposals in their economic plans. I don’t know if the Dodd-Hagel bill is ideal, or if it needs changes to get it moving, but the central idea behind such an approach is that the financing would be guaranteed by our government. That’s the kind of backing that would make it possible for the managers of the $5 trillion dollars now in our union benefit funds to seriously consider infrastructure capital investments, and I know it would have the same effect on private capital. We’d be asking government, business, labor and individuals to invest in America, and in this time of economic uncertainty and national division that would be a percentage play for all of us.
“Meanwhile, back to the reality of the present, The truth is that the current administration in Washington has for seven long years refused even to consider using infrastructure to create jobs, and even legislation like the Clean Water and Safe Drinking Water Act has been hard to move. I think we’ll get better treatment from a new administration no matter which party prevails this fall.
“We need to take a lesson from the Eisenhower years and get busy rebuilding the backbone of our country. We hear a lot about the evils of big government. From labor’s viewpoint, we don’t want big government, but we do want government that is big enough. Big enough to help our country shoulder its obligations here at home as well as around the world. Strong enough to foster profits for our companies with one arm and create good jobs for our workers with the other. Smart enough to promote economic development with one hand while reaching down and helping people climb the ladder of economic and social justice with the other.
“When it comes to fairness and economic equality, there are those who caution we should never try for too much. I’m not one of those people. I graduated with a degree in economics from Iona College, and the Brothers here taught me never to be satisfied with too little.”
Note: I confess that I am John Sweeney’s speech writer and that I did a pretty fair job on this one.
Earlier this week, President Bush gave an all-too-familiar thumbs down to an appeal by a bi-partisan delegation of the nation’s governors to “increase spending on roads, bridges and other public works” as an economic stimulus. www.nytimes.com/2008/02/26/us/26govs.html? Just a week ago in an address to a national “Pathway to Prosperity” conference on infrastructure at Iona College in New York, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney dramatized how badly seven years of such rejections from Bush have damaged the backbone of our country.
“I want to add a couple of personal end notes to what has been said about the infrastructure crisis,” Sweeney told a bi-partisan audience which had just heard pleas for infrastructure investment from the likes of Susan Eisenhower, President of the Eisenhower Group, Representative Jim Oberstar (D-MN), who chairs the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, former congressmen Harold Ford, Jr. (D-TN) and Dick Gephardt (D-MO), and former governors George Pataki ®-NY) and John Engler (R-MI).
“The first end note concerns the crumbling, outdated, poorly heated, rarely cooled, ill-equipped public schools which are the shame of our nation. We learned about the situation in our schools way back in 1995 —- 25,000 schools crying out for repair, renovation or replacement, air unfit to breathe in 15,000 schools, $112 billion needed to bring existing buildings up to minimum building standards. And those numbers have gone up since then, not down.
“A few weeks ago, I took a tour of Cardozo High School — one of the most historic schools in Washington, DC. It was an embarrassment. Paint peeling. Kids sitting in classes in coats because the heat doesn’t work. Walls crumbling. A gymnasium that can’t be used. The principal told me that when she arrived for the start of the school year last fall, not a single bathroom was operational.
“Whatever we do, let’s keep schools at the top of our list. This isn’t just a struggle about bricks and mortar, it’s personal — we’re condemning our children to crumbling schools, instead of an environment that enables them to learn, and our nation needs every ounce of their brainpower and talent.
“The second end note I want to add is about the urgency of bridge repair. Earlier this year, MSNBC compiled a special report on bridge inspections. They found out that the Federal Highway Administrator’s route to work crossed one of the substandard bridges in Washington, DC, so they built a website with a map where you can insert the beginning and the end of your own personal route to work and find out how many unsafe bridges carrying 10,000 cars or more per day you may be crossing.
“Since I was coming to work from Washington to New Rochelle this morning, I asked my staff to check out my route. We found that traveling the I-95 corridor between Washington, DC and New York City, I would cross or come within two-tenths of a mile of 30 bridges that are rated either functionally obsolete or structurally deficient. But it gets worse, For the rest of the trip, from New York City to New Rochelle, you travel across 30 additional bridges, and all but two of those 30 bridges are either functionally obsolete or structurally deficient.
“I decided to fly up – it seemed safer. But I still had to use about 20 of those bridges when taking a car from LaGuardia. Brothers and sisters, we have 17,000 bridges in this country that are behind on inspections, so we don’t know about all the dangers that are lurking. We have to give the Federal Highway Administration a mandate to inspect, a mission to rebuild and repair, and the money to back it up.”
Sweeney went on to say that what’s needed for our country is a long-range comprehensive infrastructure plan and he called on organizations as disparate as the National Association of Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO to link arms in the venture.
“Is there reason to believe we can come together around a comprehensive infrastructure plan and actually succeed? I believe the uncertain moment we’re living in as a nation could provide an opportunity. Call it an economic downturn, call it a cooling off, or call it a recession, but we’re dealing with an economy that needs long-term as well as short-term stimulus, and what Congress and the President have agreed upon so far is billions of dollars short of what’s needed.
“Many of the individuals and organizations in this room supported funding for infrastructure projects as a part of the first stimulus bill. We were disappointed they didn’t make the cut because we all know infrastructure projects are the best way to create good jobs that stimulate our economy and meet urgent needs at the same time. If we seize the moment, I can think of nothing more likely to bring Americans from all walks of life together at a time when political and economic forces are pulling us apart.
“The undertaking I’m describing will take years and years to develop and implement and it will cost many billions of dollars beyond the normal sources of funding we now depend upon. One of the ways to raise the capital for a long-term, comprehensive program is through a mechanism like the one included in the Dodd-Hagel National Infrastructure Act — which is now stuck in the House Banking Committee. That legislation would establish a National Infrastructure Bank to finance substantial infrastructure project with public and private capital, above and beyond existing grants and earmarks.
“I understand that both Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton have included similar proposals in their economic plans. I don’t know if the Dodd-Hagel bill is ideal, or if it needs changes to get it moving, but the central idea behind such an approach is that the financing would be guaranteed by our government. That’s the kind of backing that would make it possible for the managers of the $5 trillion dollars now in our union benefit funds to seriously consider infrastructure capital investments, and I know it would have the same effect on private capital. We’d be asking government, business, labor and individuals to invest in America, and in this time of economic uncertainty and national division that would be a percentage play for all of us.
“Meanwhile, back to the reality of the present, The truth is that the current administration in Washington has for seven long years refused even to consider using infrastructure to create jobs, and even legislation like the Clean Water and Safe Drinking Water Act has been hard to move. I think we’ll get better treatment from a new administration no matter which party prevails this fall.
“We need to take a lesson from the Eisenhower years and get busy rebuilding the backbone of our country. We hear a lot about the evils of big government. From labor’s viewpoint, we don’t want big government, but we do want government that is big enough. Big enough to help our country shoulder its obligations here at home as well as around the world. Strong enough to foster profits for our companies with one arm and create good jobs for our workers with the other. Smart enough to promote economic development with one hand while reaching down and helping people climb the ladder of economic and social justice with the other.
“When it comes to fairness and economic equality, there are those who caution we should never try for too much. I’m not one of those people. I graduated with a degree in economics from Iona College, and the Brothers here taught me never to be satisfied with too little.”
Note: I confess that I am John Sweeney’s speech writer and that I did a pretty fair job on this one.