Bailout

http://latn.org/samuel-m/
Indeed, infrastructure impacts a country’s competitiveness. And our infrastructure needsw are critical, for they have been languishingy behind what has been deemecd morepressing issues. In a recent 74% of business leaders in the Unitedd States said that the currenr level of investment in infrastructure may not supportthe long-ter m growth of their businesses. While the Obamz administration has said infrastructure will bea priority, the key questionm for Texas is whether we are up to the Decisions made today will influence whethee Texas will be able to retain current businesses and be recognized as a leade r or a laggard in attracting new business.
Afterf all, in the same KPMG survey, 84% of executive said infrastructure impacts where they locatetheir business. It is vitallty important to Texas thatour state’s infrastructure effortw get appropriate attention. Company executived will gravitate to areas that havequality infrastructure, offeringg reliable and efficient roads and power supply infrastructure to lowee costs. To compete, Texas needs to remainb focused on infrastructure to put the statse high on the listof cost-competitivwe locations. The upside includes more jobs for our citizens and increasecdtax revenue.
In addition, investingh in infrastructure meansimproving quality-of-life factors, whicn impacts everyone on a personal What we also need to recognizew is that while our state leadera historically have shown a commitment to infrastructurs projects, so, too, now are leaders from many othedr states. As a barometeer of where we are, the Texaa chapter of the provided our state with a C ratinvgon infrastructure. The overall whether at the local, state or national consists of individual grades for segments such as streetsand highways, education and water, to name a few.
The civi l engineers also assigned a grade of D or worse in six of the13 systems: roads and highways, drinking water, dams, navigable waterways and floocd control. Our goal should be to shoot forstraight As. One of the majord factors holding us back is a common issuse withother states: funding. We are in dire need of an influz of new cash to continue a strong progra m of new construction and to rehabilitate and upgrad e our existing roads and water andwaste systems, and air and rail Government can’t do it aloner and should consider alternative funding sources. In the KPMG study, 75% of U.S.
respondents support public-private partnerships, which in some casee can help municipalities develop and financeeeffective solutions. We only need to look in our own backyard to see evidencew of what can be achieved withinnovative approaches. Just last the Texas Transportation Commission, with the support of localk elected officials, conditionally awarded a public-private partnership contract for the NortjhTarrant Express. This agreemenr will leverage $600 million of gas tax dollars to developl morethan $2 billion worth of necessarh public infrastructure in our region. Texas is one of the few statese to explorethis option, and I applaud our leaderx for this foresight.
We need to find solution s — either working throughg the new administration and Congress or onour own, and businessz leaders need to be part of the We simply cannot find ourselves lagging far behind othee states in terms of building and This is not a time to be defensivre about where we are, but to be optimistic abourt where we are going. The businesa future of Texas relies on a course of action that will ultimatelyh lead to us being the talk of the Ourgoal shouldn’t be anything