Bloomberg, Schwarzenegger and Rendell announce funding coalition
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Pennsylvania Gov. Edward Rendell have created a coalition to encourage and direct federal funding for infrastructure investment. The coalition, Building America’s Future, will make its first task educating presidential candidates on the importance of infrastructure renovation.
In the long term, the coalition, supported with funds from the New York-based Rockefeller Foundation, will provide state and local government officials best practices on infrastructure funding issues. “We can all look at recent headlines in New Orleans, air traffic congestion in the Northeast or the bridge collapse in Minnesota to realize that our nation’s infrastructure is in need of serious attention,” Bloomberg said in a statement. “But those examples only scratch the surface of the problem. The funding to maintain our existing infrastructure, and to improve and expand infrastructure as our nation continues to grow, just hasn’t been the priority it needs to be.”
Rendell says state and local governments have been forced to pay an increasing share of infrastructure maintenance costs, and they now need federal aid. While the nation needs $1.6 trillion of infrastructure work over the next five years, Schwarzenegger said, federal investment has been cut by nearly 50 percent of the gross domestic product since 1987. “This is disastrous because without adequate infrastructure to quickly and safely move goods and people, our economy and our traffic will stop dead in its tracks,” Schwarzenegger said. More information on the coalition is available at http://www.mikebloomberg.com/en/issues/mayor_bloomberg_joins_governors_rendell_and_schwarzenegger_to_create_building_americas_future_a_non_partisan_coalition