Governor Ed Rendell (D-PA), Co-chair of Building America's Future, discusses infrastructure on CSPAN - Washington Journal
07/23/2010

Transcript Excerpts: 

host: what is the impact of the stimulus bill put into law after the crisis?

Gov. Rendell: significant. particularly in the field of infrastructure. between transportation infrastructure -- bridges, roads, highways, mass transit, water and sewer, we had about $1.5 billion that have gone into the economy and create tens of thousands of good paying jobs not only on the construction site, but back in the factories, the steel factories and concrete and asphalt throughout pennsylvania. we have seen a significant uptick in good paying family- sustaining jobs, jobs that cannot be outsourced. we have done a pretty good job -- and pat myself on the bad -- of spending the money. congressman oberstar runs the states on how quickly they put the transportation infrastructure stimulus money for use and i think we are tied with no. 1 in the country. stimulus has got a bad name with the american people, but it has worked very effectively in pennsylvania.

host: you asked the federal government for more stimulus. are you beyond aid to states? are you also asking for additional around for transportation jobs, it severed?

Gov. Rendell: i think specifically if there is another bill to help the economy, i hope that it would focus on infrastructure. the infrastructure part of the bill has been the most successful of all in creating good family-sustaining jobs."" i remember in congress, senator boxer and senator inhofe, people on different sides of the political spectrum, they urged increasing infrastructure spending in the original stimulus bill by two or three times of what was in the bill eventually. it that would have been a good thing for the country. i would like to see a very narrow-tailored bill, much smaller than the first, but puts additional and the structure funds into the economy because, again, those are great jobs, they cannot be outsourced and they help american manufacturing. construction and manufacturing are right now the keys to this recovery, in my judgment.

host: at the beginning of this you said that pennsylvania's economy has grown and created 60,000 jobs in the private sector --

Gov. Rendell: in the past 4 1/2 months. as though there are some who argue, including a harvard professor who will be in washington today at the american enterprise institute, he put out a steady in october of 2009 saying that his research shows that stimulus does not have the impact on gdp that's -- that the keynesian economists believe it does. in fact, he thinks when the government tries to stimulate the economy by putting money into it, that it causes the private sector to take their money out, and that perhaps if there had not been stimulus, maybe the private sector would have grown beyond those 6000 jobs.

Gov. Rendell: no offense to the professor whom i never met, but i think it is ludicrous. first of all, transportation funding in this country is 95% to 90% government funded. i would like to see more private-public partnerships. we should get private sector dollars into and the structure. i tried to lease the pennsylvania turnpike to the private firm of the legislature here was against it. but even if we get the private sector in, transportation funding is going to the essentials funded by government investment. it is one of the things government should be doing. senator i nhofe, certainly a deficit hawk, he said publicly in a hearing -- and i testified, that is how we became close on this issue -- he said it infrastructure spending is the second most important thing the government can do next in military spending. let me give the professor another example. we have a program at the to the endicott capital redevelopment assistance program where we give projects money that they can construct factories, laboratories, you name it. what happened in this economy, the private sector, whether it is banks or holding companies, those people are reluctant to take risk. but when government money comes in and takes part of the risk, it emboldens the private sector to go ahead. look, we've got government money -- would that government money we feel more secure. i think it is directly opposite what he is saying. i think when government money put -- puts money in a project it makes it less risky for the private sector to invest.

host: here is what he wrote in ""the wall street journal."" the empirical evidence does not support the idea that spending multipliers exceed one. in fact, stimulus programs will likely raise -- by less than the increase in government spending. if our viewers are interested in hearing the presser -- professor in his own words we will be covering it live at 2:30 p.m. here on c-span.

Gov. Rendell: i could suggest one thing. i think viewers should go to the pennsylvania website, parecovery.com, are stimulus website. you can see that at the end of june we took a snapshot of how many people were working on construction sites where the project was 100% stimulus funded and there were about 9000 pennsylvania's on the job and site. we asked all of the vendors of those projects, how many workers that had either brought back or hired a new to fulfil the stimulus contract and it was over 3000. we noticed in one month, stimulus funding had created 12,000 good paying jobs. at and those jobs or not already -- always greeted in june because projects take 16 months 18 months to fulfill. i know hard, concrete irrefutable facts that stimulus funding has created good jobs and have a ripple effect putting the indirect jobs back into factories because would you do a bridge, you need steel to repair and buttress the bridge and the steel comes from factories and those factories bring workers back to the bill those orders. so professor -- he could not be more wrong. no offense. i am sure he had a lot of degrees.

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caller: my comment is, i want to thank governor rendell for his administration and what he has been doing since he has been governor for pennsylvania. what i want to say is that, the republican party that is calling, those are calling for the republican party, i don't know why -- everything the democrats -- it is no, no, and never bring any ideas. ideas that would improve the government, they never bring anything. all that want to say is no, no. everything they say no.

Gov. Rendell: let me say, i share some of their frustrations but it is not true for all republicans. for example, like i said, senator inhofe, a conservative deficit hawk and a very smart man, he and i offered this op-ed piece that this nation has to invest in infrastructure. i think this whole debate about government spending is wrong. it is not a lot of government spending or a little, it should be good, targeted, effected government spending. should we spend repairing roads, bridges, and i was? sure, we should and the name of public safety and the quality of our lives and economic competitiveness. if we don't invest in infrastructure we would be stopped. should we spend properly educating our children? yes, but we don't give school districts blank checks, but we give to programs we know work like extending kindergarten to a full day, a science show that is as important as anything we can do for a child's educational development. the key is for republicans and democrats to get off of these ideological barriers and to combine and spend government money on the things that we know spending can be effected live. and don't spend on things that really cannot make a difference. there is a debate -- i did not know enough about it to be involved -- but the spending we are doing in afghanistan, is that 10 years from now going to make any material difference to what happens to that part of the world for american security? we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars annually over there. we've got to find out what spending is a fact of, what spending improves the quality of lives of americans, and let us put all of this political stuff -- everyone says we can't do this because of the 2010 elections are coming around. then after the 2010 elections that are going to say, we can do this because the presidential election is going around. look, all of us are elected to govern, to move the country forward. we were not elected to protect our own jobs. until we get that added to this country is in the pits and we are not going to move forward until we put all of the stuff aside. so, i agree with you. there are a lot of republicans who for political reasons are just saying no to everything. no to any spending. they are not listening to common sense. granted, i know you know who david walker is of the peterson foundation. deficit hawks. david walker and pearson say, yes, we need a long-term plan to do something about our deficit and debt but at the same time we can have a short-term spending, government spending, that does generate economic growth. they are not mutually exclusive. of course, everybody knows they are right. let us get together and get it done. host: the front page of "the financial times" this morning quotes european central bank she is saying all industrialized countries need to tighten, cut back on spending and increase taxes.

guest: well, i am sure it you will get agreeing the republicans to agree on cutting in spending but not increasing taxes. it is interesting, the caller, i think he is from -- i forget what state he was from, but he was saying it was a republican congress and not president clinton who produced the balanced budget an enemy of the deficit. it was both. it was president clinton's plan to increase taxes on the wealthiest 2 percent of americans joined with the republican congress and president clinton agreeing to cut spending. those two things eliminated the deficit. you really have to do both. you have to generate more revenue and reduce spending. but at the same time, all investment cannot stop if we in the name of deficit reduction eliminate all investments in things that we need in this country. it will not matter because we will not have much of an economy left to generate the revenue we need to balance the budget. we've got to continue to invest in growth. and infrastructure is a perfect example. i was on a show with mike pence once, a bright and able guy, and he said was in a bar and spend, and i said how will we repair roads, bridges, and highways, and he did not have any answer because there are some ways we need to keep investing in, even as we reduce the debt and deficit.

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