NEW YORK—(ENEWSPF)—November 30, 2015. Hillary for America released the details of Hillary Clinton’s five-year, $275 billion plan to create jobs and increase wages by investing in the modernization of our nation’s infrastructure. Clinton’s plan is a comprehensive proposal to invest in infrastructure across the board: in our transit systems, roads and bridges, ports and waterways, our electric grid and energy system, in railways and airports, and more. These investments will cut costs for families and businesses, boost wages, enhance our competitiveness, help combat climate change, and protect our communities.
The release of Clinton’s infrastructure plan this week is the first phase of a month-long focus on jobs, with further announcements planned in the coming weeks on boosting federal investments in research and manufacturing.
“Our roads and bridges are potholed and crumbling. Families endure blackouts because our electric grid fails in extreme weather. Beneath our cities, our pipeline infrastructure – our water, our sewer, you name it – is up to a century or more old. Our airports are a mess. Our ports need improvement. Our rail systems do as well,” Hillary Clinton said. “I want to use every tool we can to invest in infrastructure and build a stronger, more prosperous future. We’ve got to do this now.”
The major elements of Clinton’s infrastructure investment plan include:
- Boosting direct federal infrastructure investment by $250 billion over the next five years. She will fully pay for these investments through business tax reform.
- Creating a $25 billion national infrastructure bank—supporting up to an additional $225 billion in federally supported investment for energy, water, broadband, transportation, and multi-modal infrastructure projects to ensure America’s competitiveness in the 21st century. This means that, adding up the direct federal investment with the infrastructure bank financing, Clinton’s plan would support up to $500 billion in infrastructure projects across the country.
- Reauthorizing a Build America Bonds program to help finance the rebuilding of America’s infrastructure. In just two years, the Obama Administration’s Build America Bonds (BABs) supported more than $180 billion in infrastructure spending in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
- Applying best practices to improve the way we invest in infrastructure. She would work to ensure that projects are selected on impact, not politics, streamline permitting, break down silos that limit funds to a single type of transportation, and encourage 21st century design and technology.
Clinton’s plan would create good-paying jobs today and lay the foundation for rising incomes in the future. According to the White House Council of Economic Advisers, every $1 billion in infrastructure investment creates 13,000 jobs. Other studies show that every dollar of infrastructure investment leads to an estimated $1.60 increase in GDP the following year and twice that over the subsequent 20 years.
Other key impacts that would result from Clinton’s infrastructure investment plan include:
- Fixing and expanding our roads and bridges.
- Connecting all households in America to high-speed Internet by 2020.
- Expanding affordable public transportation options for low-income communities and communities of color.
- Connecting businesses and farmers to their customers and suppliers with a national freight investment program.
- Building a faster, safer and higher capacity passenger rail system.
- Linking farms, businesses, and households to safe and reliable drinking water and wastewater systems.
- Building and modernizing our energy infrastructure and capturing America’s clean energy potential.
- Upgrading to next generation aviation technology and world-class American airports.
- Modernizing our dams and levees.
A fact sheet detailing Clinton’s proposal is available here.
Source: www.hillaryclinton.com
