Washington, DC
July 13, 2012

Obama Signs Transportation Bill

There were times in recent weeks when the best of political minds doubted if we would ever get another piece of infrastructure legislation. With the exception of the Obama stimulus, we had not passed a national surface transportation bill since 2005.

America came together to pass the transportation bill. No one worked harder or worked us harder than our immediate past President LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. He never stopped. There was a "sign-on" letter listing hundreds of mayors almost every other month. Mayor Villaraigosa was a catalyst that brought the President of the AFL-CIO, the Chamber of Commerce, Republican House Chair Congressman John Mica, and Democratic Senate Committee Chair Barbara Boxer to a press conference on the Hill to proclaim publicly the need to pass the transportation bill which includes the "America Fast Forward" initiative conceived and championed by Mayor Villaraigosa.

At the bill signing last Friday, President Obama gave a shout out to our organization and Mayor Villaraigosa and his hard work on this legislation. President Obama also reached out to shake the hand of our Vice President Mesa Mayor Scott Smith.

While we applaud the passing of the transportation bill, we realize that with the exception of the "Fast Forward" initiative it is basically a flat funded bill. And due to the crumbling infrastructure and the infrastructure investments we cannot afford not to invest in, our new President, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter calls our leadership to Philadelphia to write and come forth with a new way of defining the infrastructure needs of the nation. It's more than asphalt or another paved country road where pine trees live and people don't. It's about the cyber spinal cord of our nation that runs through our work, our learning and our recreation. It's about community colleges and university/city partnerships. It's about a safe city with the best security infrastructure. It's about deferred maintenance across the board and it's about investments for a stronger more competitive nation.

What we are hearing from both Republican and Democratic mayors is that they are working with their business communities as partners to rebuild and maintain our infrastructure; we are not letting the federal government off the hook.

We have heard leaders using the global competitive rhetoric over and over from both parties. We hear President Obama and Governor Romney both supporting the fact that we must face the global competiveness in the world economy.

If we are going to have a stronger economy and remain competitive we must have smarter investments. Today, USA infrastructure is ranked 24th out of 124 countries by the World Economic Forum.

According to a report by the Council on Foreign Relations, the USA spends 1.6 percent of GDP on infrastructure and 52.7 percent is the average amount by which other developed nations outspend the USA.

China plans to build 50 new airports by 2015. South Korea started high'speed rail in 2004 and today 200 mph bullet trains crisscross the country; Seoul announces $15 billion will be spent on upgrades. The United Kingdom will spend $47 billion over the next decade on rails and transportation projects. Canada will boost her trade, upgrading routes to ports that service Asian markets with a $3.4 billion investment. Norway will spend 50 billion through 2019 to double rail terminal capacity and to modernize the nation's ports. Over the past 20 years, Spain built 43 International Airports and the largest high'speed rail network in Europe.

President Obama has stated many times over the past few months that we must end the two wars abroad and now be about the business of rebuilding our own nation. His vision is to take what we are spending on the wars and convert one half for deficit reduction and the other half for rebuilding our USA infrastructure.

As the Presidential campaign goes forward, through the Conventions and into the General Election, Governor Romney will share with us his vision of what we as a nation must do to have a top ranked infrastructure in a top ranked economy.

Mayor Nutter's goal, supported by Republican Vice President Mesa Mayor Scott Smith and other mayors is to bring forth to the nation an infrastructure plan that America cannot afford not to invest in and implement as we go forward. Finalized, our mayors' infrastructure action agenda, Building A Better America, will be our recommendation to President Obama and Governor Romney as they face each other this fall. Mayors want to hear from both on the infrastructure issue in more detail. We plan to be active in asking for more specifics as to what they will do, not just talk about, when they take the oath in January.

Our organization is pledged to push our agenda forward. Both candidates, both parties will be better for it – and in the long run our nation will be better for it. When it's all said and done the election should be more based on what our new President will do. It is in that spirit that we will push for a more substantive discussion because it's our future and mayors have no choice.