I-35 bridge, Minneapolis, MN, August 5, 2007 (FEMA/Todd Swain)
Today U.S. Senators Harry Reid and Amy Klobuchar joined Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood in a conference call to announce the "Rebuild America Jobs Act," the next component of President Obama’s jobs bill to be taken up by the Senate, the week of October 30.
The bill will include $50 billion in immediate funding for roads, bridges and airports, and $10 billion to establish a national infrastructure bank to leverage private and public capital to fund a broad range of projects, including water and sewer systems as well as transportation. The bill will be paid for with a millionaires surtax of 0.7% on modified adjusted gross income in excess of $1 million.
Reid reiterated the statement he's made with every jobs bill that Republicans have blocked in recent weeks: the Senate Republicans are the only people who are opposed to putting Americans back to work. With this bill, he said, Democrats are "giving Senate Republicans another chance to do what's right for America" by voting on critical infrastructure funding. That funding isn't just a jobs issue, Sen. Klobuchar asserted, but primarily a safety issue. She cited the failing grade the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) gave the nation's infrastructure for safety, including the 24 percent of the nation's bridges that are either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.
From the fact sheet [pdf] released by Reid's office:
This investment will put people to work upgrading 150,000 miles of road, laying/maintaining 4,000 miles of train tracks, restoring 150 miles of runways, and putting in place a next generation air‐traffic control system that will reduce travel time and delays. The plan includes $27 billion to rebuild roads and bridges, $9 billion to repair transit systems, $5 billion for projects selected through a competitive grant program, $4 billion for construction of the high‐speed rail network, $2 billion to improve airport facilities and $1 billion for a NextGen air traffic control system.
This effort would just be a start at recovering some of the two million construction jobs that have been lost since 2007, and would make our transportation system a hell of a lot safer. So of course Republicans will oppose it.