“Our infrastructure is more than just a quality-of-life issue. It is an economic issue. Americans waste billions of dollars while semi-trucks carry goods on gridlocked roads and lose millions of gallons of water in leaky old pipes. We lose time and dollars because our ports are not computerized or modern enough to meet today's demands. Our businesses lose real dollars because our buildings are not energy efficient. This kind of waste raises the costs of everything from clothing to cars to raw carrots. It's clear that the faster we can move people and goods, the stronger our economy is. In short, we are a dinosaur economy trying to compete in a space-age global environment.”

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) (BAF Co-Chair)

“A bold infrastructure plan will help put Americans back to work—plenty of good projects are ready to go, they just require funding—and it will build the infrastructure our country needs to compete in the 21st century. Remember: the construction projects of the New Deal didn't just help Americans survive theGreat Depression. They built the foundation for a broader and more prosperous middle class that led America to new heights.”

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) (BAF Co-Chair)

“Our global competitors –China, India, Japan and the European Union– already heavily invest public and private resources ininfrastructure… To help keep American businesses and manufacturers competitive, we must do better than 2.4% of our GDP towards public infrastructure spending.”

National Association of Manufacturers President and Former Michigan Governor John Engler (R)

Infrastructure is a key stimulus for economic growth and a measure of global competitiveness.

Our crumbling infrastructure isn’t just affecting our quality of life – it's hurting America’s bottom line, causing lost revenues and waste.

• FACT: Rolling blackouts and inefficiencies in the U.S. electrical grid cost an estimated $80 billion a year (Source: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory).
• FACT: Over the next 30 years, our nation is expected to grow by 100 million and highway traffic will double again.  Even if highway capacity grows no faster than in the last 25 years, Americans can expect to spend 160 hours – 4 work weeks – each year in traffic by 2035 (American Road and Transportation Builders Association).

Americans waste money and time when semi-trucks carry goods on gridlocked roads, and when ports are not modern enough to meet today's demands.  The faster we can move people and goods, the stronger our economy will be.   

• FACT:  On an average day, some 43 million tons of goods valued at $29 billion move on the nation’s interconnected network of ports, roads, rails and inland waterways (Source: U.S. Chamber of Commerce).
• FACT:  Traffic on more than half the miles of interstate highway exceeds 70 percent of capacity, and nearly 25 percent of the miles are strained at more than 95 percent of capacity (Source: Brookings Institute).
• FACT:  By 2020, every major U.S. container port is projected to at least double the volume of cargo it was designed to handle. Some East Coast ports will triple in volume, and some West Coast ports will quadruple (Source: U.S. Chamber of Commerce).
• FACT:  Other countries are leapfrogging past us by investing in world-class ports.  China is investing $6.9 billion; the port of Shanghai now has almost as much container capacity as all U.S. ports combined (Source: Brookings Institute).

Targeted, accountable infrastructure investment is one of the most effective ways to stimulate our economy and create new jobs that can’t be outsourced.

• FACT:  Under the right conditions, a 1% increase in a country's infrastructure stock could produce a 1% increase in the level of GDP (Source: World Bank).
• FACT:  For every $1 billion in federal investment in transportation infrastructure, an estimated 37,000 jobs are created (Former US DOT Secretary Norm Mineta).
• FACT:  For every $1.00 invested in public water and sewer infrastructure services, approximately $8.97 is added to the national economy (Source: U.S. Conference of Mayors).
• FACT: Repairing existing roads and bridges creates 9 percent more jobs per dollar than building new roads or bridges (Source: Surface Transportation Policy Project).

America is falling behind both developed and developing countries in tackling its infrastructure problems.

• FACT:  The U.S. is currently investing less on infrastructure as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) than Europe, China and many emerging countries (Source: Progressive Policy Institute).
• FACT:  The European Union is investing over $675 million to the “Marco Polo” Program to encourage shippers to move freight off European highways and onto coastal shipping routes (Source:  Institute for Global Maritime Studies).
• FACT:  By 2020 China plans to build 55,000 miles of highways, more than the total length of the U.S. interstate system (Source: Atlanta Fed).
• FACT:  There’s already an estimated $2.4 trillion in construction projects either underway or under development in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries - Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Omar, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates - and $1.4 trillion of that is earmarked for projects in civil construction (Source: Merrill Lynch).