On the recordFebruary 28, 2012
The damage that you mentioned earlier in terms of the roads that are in need of critical repair, the cost to the American motorists in terms of the damage to car suspension systems and tires, that wear and tear wears out cars more rapidly. Delays in traffic for something like UPS--a 5-minute delay I think translates to something like $100 million of costs to them over the course of a year. This $1.57 of economic impact for every dollar invested translates into over 25,000 jobs for each billion dollars that is spent on infrastructure. A far greater rate of return than on military spending, on a lot of the other things--tax cuts, for Heaven's sake. This is real economic benefit, particularly when we've got a building trade sector where unions are looking at 20, 30, 40 percent or more unemployment. These are opportunities to put people to work tomorrow on things that people in America need today.
