On the recordSeptember 17, 2013
We know there is an immediate return on investment in infrastructure. Mark Zandi laid it out there. You invest $1 in infrastructure now, and you get back $1.57, and you have somebody working immediately. They become a taxpayer rather than a tax receiver. So there are some real opportunities here. I want to just take a couple of seconds. I was reading The Wall Street Journal as I was flying from California today, and there was an article by Martin Feldstein, who was Ronald Reagan's chief economic adviser, and he focused in his article on several things and growing the economy. How do you get the economy growing? He specifically talked about infrastructure. He talked about infrastructure as a way to immediately employ people. We certainly agree with that. And it's also a way you lay the foundation for future economic growth because that infrastructure is then available for the future. I was in Fresno, California, I guess 2 or 3 years ago, and went to the high school to talk at an educational conference there, and they are setting this conference in an auditorium that was built by the WPA, the Works Progress Administration in the Roosevelt period, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt period. So we were using this wonderful auditorium 70 years later. You go, wow, there's an infrastructure investment in education. So it is by building this infrastructure we employ people immediately, and we then have the foundation for future economic growth.…
