Idea of the Day: We Need to Invest in Our Nation’s Infrastructure

November 28, 2012

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President Barack Obama’s re-election was widely viewed as a referendum on the issues he has championed in his first term, and that certainly includes rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure. On the campaign trail, the president repeatedly called for directing to infrastructure the federal spending saved by ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, asking for those funds to support “nation building right here at home.” Only one week before the election, he laid out his legislative agenda for a second term: addressing the federal deficit first, then moving on to infrastructure improvement and immigration reform.

It’s clear that the president and many members of Congress understand that at the heart of the world’s largest and most innovative economies are advanced infrastructure networks. State-of-the-art infrastructure ensures the timely delivery of goods, supplies homes and businesses with clean water and electricity, and enables individuals and information to travel thousands of miles with incredible ease. Without this infrastructure, the continuous economic growth we have come to expect would be impossible.

For more on this topic, please see:

• Accelerating Infrastructure Improvements with Better Public Policies that Tap Private Investment by Donna Cooper, Keith Miller, and John Craig