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..