INFRASTRUCTURE
Beyond question America’s infrastructure is in dire need of repair, rehabilitation and modernization. It's more than just a matter of falling bridges and failing levees, as important as those things are. The legacy energy, transportation, and communication systems we rely on are far behind those found in other developed countries, and if they are allowed to erode further the cost of restoring our economic competitiveness (and our overall standard of living) will begin to become prohibitive.
Worse yet, a vulnerable and weak infrastructure poses a tangible national security threat: Crippling energy and transportation systems over a century old — or older — is an easy thing to do, especially given their lack of redundancy. Waiting any longer to address the issue will only mean greater risks and a bigger job. The time to act is now.
Proposals:
Implementing a domestic Marshall Plan focused on replacing our 20th Century infrastructure with modern, 21st Century systems.
Creating public/private partnerships funded by government guaranteed infrastructure loan banks empowered to issue very low interest, very long-term bonds suitable for financing 100-year capital improvements.
Encouraging and facilitating broad cooperation between industry and government to bring the combined expertise of two of our most fundamental institutions to bear.
We can create jobs, tackle climate change and boost our manufacturing capacity if we’re smart. But if we continue to allow our infrastructure to crumble around us, we’ll find ourselves unable to do any of the three, let alone all of them, before too long.
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The Modern Whig Institute is a 501(c)(3) civic research and education foundation dedicated to the fundamental American principles of representative government, ordered liberty, capitalism, due process and the rule of law.
