Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell made the case for revitalizing the U.S. infrastructure, explaining that it will improve the country's quality of life, public safety, and economic viability.
Rendell stressed that the scale of the program would need to be significant in order to achieve the desired effects as a vehicle for economic recovery.
"Scale is important in this program. It cannot be 25 billion or 50 billion...our infrastructure is collapsing, it's a danger to public safety, it's killing our quality of life when people need to sit in traffic jams an hour and a half a day, and it is certainly producing an uncompetitive American economy," said Rendell during a summit at the US Chamber of Commerce.
In order to make sure infrastructure improvements are carried out quickly, Rendell discussed a suggested plan to take federal funds away from states if they are not used immediately, a move that Rendell says will create an incentive.
"We need to have a hammer, and the hammer is 'use it or lose it'...we know that in emergency situations in infrastructure can happen readily."
Rendell dismissed the notion that the U.S. does not have the funds for wide-scale infrastructure at this time.
"One thing that's been good about the financial crisis, and there's not much, is that it has finally blown away the answer to good ideas in Washington 'we just don't have the money'. It's pretty clear, whenever they want to have the money, they have the money," said Rendell.
"If we can produce that type of money to bail out financial institutions who may or may not deserve to be bailed out, we can certainly produce a small portion of that money to rebuild the American infrastructure."
Rendell says that he would like New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to assume the role of transportation secretary, and also mentions a number of governors he considers contenders, including Tim Kaine of Virginia, Kathy Sebelius of Kansas , and John Corzine of New Jersey.
Pennsylvania Governor pushes for infrastructure revitalization
Rendell stressed that the scale of the program would need to be significant in order to achieve the desired effects as a vehicle for economic recovery.
"Scale is important in this program. It cannot be 25 billion or 50 billion...our infrastructure is collapsing, it's a danger to public safety, it's killing our quality of life when people need to sit in traffic jams an hour and a half a day, and it is certainly producing an uncompetitive American economy," said Rendell during a summit at the US Chamber of Commerce.
In order to make sure infrastructure improvements are carried out quickly, Rendell discussed a suggested plan to take federal funds away from states if they are not used immediately, a move that Rendell says will create an incentive.
"We need to have a hammer, and the hammer is 'use it or lose it'...we know that in emergency situations in infrastructure can happen readily."
Rendell dismissed the notion that the U.S. does not have the funds for wide-scale infrastructure at this time.
"One thing that's been good about the financial crisis, and there's not much, is that it has finally blown away the answer to good ideas in Washington 'we just don't have the money'. It's pretty clear, whenever they want to have the money, they have the money," said Rendell.
"If we can produce that type of money to bail out financial institutions who may or may not deserve to be bailed out, we can certainly produce a small portion of that money to rebuild the American infrastructure."
Rendell says that he would like New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to assume the role of transportation secretary, and also mentions a number of governors he considers contenders, including Tim Kaine of Virginia, Kathy Sebelius of Kansas , and John Corzine of New Jersey.