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Media Coverage
2/25/2008
Governors Hope for Federal Cash
By ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Governors are debating priorities if Congress takes up a second stimulus package, with some state leaders pushing for federal money to repair roads, water systems and bridges.
Governors hoped to raise the issue of infrastructure on Monday with President Bush at the White House.
"There are a lot of projects in every state where the architectural design has been done, where literally they're ready to tap into the ground and begin construction," said Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania.
Rendell and a bipartisan group of governors are pushing public works as part of a potential second stimulus package. Democrat Eliot Spitzer of New York and Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger of California are among the governors demanding federal action.
"We owe it to the people of America to join together and rebuild our country," Schwarzenegger said.
Several governors on Sunday announced their support for the Building America's Future coalition, a public works advocacy group that includes New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The group estimates the country's infrastructure needs exceed $1 trillion.
Through a weekend of meetings in Washington, governors discussing infrastructure frequently cited last August's collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis into the Mississippi River, which killed 13 people and injured 145.
At a private meeting Sunday, governors authorized staff members of the National Governors Association to begin listing positions the group could take on a second stimulus package.
NGA chairman Tim Pawlenty, the Republican governor of Minnesota, didn't rule out public works projects, but he questioned their short-term value.
"It's helpful in the intermediate term," said Pawlenty. "In terms of an immediate boost, there's a lag time between when those things get approved and we actually get dirt moving."
Last month, governors asked congressional leaders debating the initial stimulus package to freeze planned reductions to Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for poor families and children. They also asked for $6 billion in a flexible block grant to be used as states saw fit.
Pawlenty said Sunday that governors never got a response.
Governors are eager to continue fighting the Medicaid cuts, saying a poor economy is not the time to reduce the safety net for the poor and ask states to do more financially.
"States across America are facing some real constraints on their budgets, and to exacerbate that to the tune of $13 billion for these Medicaid regulation changes is particularly inopportune right now," said Republican Gov. Jim Douglas of Vermont.
2/23/2008
Editorial - NY Times
Before Another Bridge Falls
Nearly seven months after a highway bridge collapsed in Minneapolis, a federal commission put a jaw-dropping price tag on starting to attend to America’s crumbling foundations: $225 billion a year for the next 50 years just to maintain and upgrade surface transportation.
That report, like the bridge collapse, should have sparked a serious policy debate everywhere people rely on bridges, roads and transit systems — which is everywhere. It hasn’t, and that makes taking on this critical work of national repair even tougher.
Of the presidential candidates, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama have plans for repairing the nation’s crumbling infrastructure — but no persuasive explanation for how they would pay for it. Mr. Obama would use money saved from ending the Iraq war; Mrs. Clinton would apply savings from more efficient government.
The federal panel called for paying for a large part of the bill with an increase in the federal gas tax of 25 cents to 40 cents over five years. So far no candidate has had the courage to suggest that.
The next president will have to show a lot more leadership if there is any hope of reversing the damage from decades of underfunding and inattention. Washington invests less than $90 billion a year on surface transportation. That means states and cities have to pick up more of the burden, and more expensive projects go unfunded.
Ensuring safe and dependable roads, bridges and transportation systems, as well as water systems, sewage treatment plants, dams and even schools also requires long-term planning. Unfortunately most politicians prefer quick fixes.
Representative Earl Blumenauer, Democrat of Oregon, has been pushing for a real national infrastructure plan, and he has a good hook. He reminds anyone who will listen that President Thomas Jefferson’s administration wrote America’s first national development plan — calling for building roads and canals — in 1808. In 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt charted a second plan, which foresaw the need to invest in electrical generation.
Another hundred years later, the country is overdue for a new plan, one fitted for the times. In addition to repairing roads and power grids, it will have to encourage the development of alternative energy and find ways to secure critical sites against potential acts of terrorism.
Members of Congress need to listen to what the federal commission and Mr. Blumenauer are saying. The country cannot wait for another bridge to fall.
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