Build a Bright Future
From the AFL-CIO
This is Infrastructure Week, an annual event where an increasingly powerful coalition led by local, state and federal leaders, as well as both businesses and labor unions, demand massive and necessary investments to build America.
This year’s Infrastructure Week comes at a time when 80% of voters say investing in America’s infrastructure is a top priority. America’s labor movement says the time to build is now.
The time to invest heavily in America’s infrastructure is now: For $2 trillion, we can have safe drinking water and quality public schools, reliable transit systems and sturdy bridges.
71%: That’s how many transportation ballot measures have passed in the United States since 2000, proving the public’s desire for infrastructure investments in our shared future.
Infrastructure investments with ironclad “Buy America” provisions to build basic national assets, such as bridges, transit systems, airports and seaports, and public buildings, will spur manufacturing jobs in steel and other battered industries, creating millions of American jobs and lifting workers’ pay.
For another $2 trillion, we can make America the global leader in the technologies and infrastructure of the future, including high-speed rail, smart utilities and other innovations to improve lives and stave off climate change.
The ideas offered by President Donald Trump would slash the federal infrastructure commitment to projects from 80% to 20%, which simply passes the buck to our cash-strapped cities and states.
We need real federal dollars if we want to actually build and repair things and put people to work. Let’s do it.
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