Invest In America
Orders of Magnitude
How far away is Congress from meaningfully addressing the country's infrastructure crisis? Based on testimony at a Capitol Hill hearing this week, 1.59 trillion steps away.
The Case
Stranded On The Road for Cheap Political Points
Doing away with federal gasoline taxes for even a short period of time will do serious damage to the economy as we head into a recession and as high gas prices affect our commuting patterns. Federal gasoline tax dollars go into a trust fund that helps pay for roads, bridges and mass transit. According to the federal government's own calculations, every $1 billion spent of the gasoline tax revenues creates nearly 35,000 jobs. A summertime "gas tax holiday" could cost the nation almost 350,000 jobs and would halt work on vital improvements to roads and bridges, as well as mass transit systems stressed by new riders leaving their cars at home. According to the Congressional Budget Office, we're already falling behind in our ability to pay for our transportation needs. The bigger issue is this: An economy that depends on the efficient interstate movement of goods and services can't afford to continue starving the maintenance and growth of our transportation network. But that's what we've done under the Bush administration, which opposed moves even from within its own party to increase transportation spending enough to match actual needs. Dumping the burden on already-strapped and unevenly equipped states won't solve the problem. A transportation system that allows the economy to operate efficiently and save precious fuel is a national priority; we should all share in the costs and the benefits.more »
Rebuild Our Public Infrastructure
Conservatives have no legitimacy when they complain on one hand about pork-barrel spending while squandering money on “bridges to nowhere,” on crony corporations like Halliburton and on subsidies for their political contributors. Meanwhile, the American Society of Civil Engineers estimates we need to spend $1.6 trillion over the next five years to fix our roads, bridges, water lines and other essential public resources. These are real needs, not "pork." Plus, it's a matter of global competitiveness: Countries like China and India are making massive investments in public transportation, schools and broadband, while too many of our children study in crumbling schools, workers lose productivity on crowded roads, and Internet commerce suffers under some of the slowest and most overpriced broadband connections in the industrialized world. The more-than-$100 billion a year spent on the war in Iraq would go a long way to funding these investments, which would enhance our economic security..more »
Facts & Resources
$22 trillion in new energy investment needed
The International Energy Agency estimates that, between now and 2030, $22 trillion in new investment is needed to meet expected demand.
Americans want government to return to domestic priorities
In a survey of voters in September 2007, Peter Hart Research found these two frames scored highest out of eight:
- “Over the past five years the Bush administration has spent nearly half a
trillion dollars in Iraq, while saying that we cannot afford to meet our
priorities at here at home. In fact with just one week of Iraq war funding, more »
The News
Panel’s Bipartisan View: F.D.A. Is Underfinanced
A Brighter Spotlight, Yet The Pay Rises
The Voices
The Big Brokers Blew It. They Should Bear the Cost.
Once upon a time on Wall Street, in the days when investment banks were small private partnerships, a simple but ingenious idea kept bankers and traders accountable for their actions: the collective-liability clauses in their partnership agreements. A mistaken trade here or bad advice there, and all the partners suffered. more »
Iraq, $5,000 Per Second?
The United States seems to have slipped into recession; Americans are losing their homes, jobs and health insurance; banks are struggling — and the Iraq war appears to have aggravated all these domestic woes.more »
Latest from our Bloggers
1:27 pm
Newly released data by the United States Census Bureau continues to show how much President George W. Bush has ravaged the American economic landscape. more »
8:42 pm
Conservative governments have resolutely cut budgets and driven out the experts whose job it was to keep the country's public works in good working order. But they never expected there would be an Obama Moment—a moment of national renewal in which progressives would be able to seize the process and launch some bold, creative acts of our own. It's not an overstatement to say that we may never have a creative opportunity like this one again.more »
4:23 pm
The conservative failure in public investment, and progressive solutions for addressing that failure, is the subject of my interview with Eric Lotke, the research director of the Campaign for America's Future, on WHMP-AM, where I was substituting for Bill Dwight. Lotke points out the consequences of years of disinvestment in public assets, including examples of how we are falling behind other countries, and discusses some solutions now being considered by progressive-minded leaders in Washington.more »
9:47 am
Our nation’s infrastructure is dying of old age and neglect. The solution is obvious: Repair and rebuild. We can't allow conservatives to have us running scared from this issue.more »
1:34 pm
Obama's disappointing decision to support the FISA bill speaks to the importance of pushing politicians for bold progressive change, and pushing well.more »
9:17 am
Calling a Katrina investigation "pork" raises the question: does McCain know the difference between wasteful spending and worthy investment?more »
11:45 am
As college students celebrate graduation this May, their joy is combined with the harsh reality they face post-graduation--many of these students will graduate with unmanageable levels of loan debt that they can not afford basic necessities. more »
10:48 am
Instead of a silly argument over a "gas tax holiday," we desperately need a serious discussion about the nation's infrastructure. And there is a good legislative proposal that could be the basis for that discussion. more »



