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The message was clear in President Obama’s 2015 State of the Union Address: we need to put aside our differences and work together to build a comprehensive, long-term plan that will create jobs and restore our ailing infrastructure systems. 

According to the president:

“21^st century businesses need 21^st century infrastructure – modern ports, stronger bridges, faster trains and the fastest internet. Democrats and Republicans used to agree on this. So let’s set our sights higher than a single oil pipeline. Let’s pass a bipartisan infrastructure plan that could create more than thirty times as many jobs per year, and make this country stronger for decades to come.”

Stakeholders from both sides of the fence responded, suggesting that cooperation may be possible after all. Here are a few selects from the infrastructure world:

“…addressing our workforce issues and skills gap and ensuring we have a long-term solution to our infrastructure needs, are critical to sustain the manufacturing comeback and allow manufacturers in the United States to innovate, create jobs and thrive.”
-Jay Timmons, President & CEO, National Association of Manufacturers

“While I’m willing to work with President Obama on finding a way to fix our nation’s infrastructure, having to choose between infrastructure or the job-creating Keystone pipeline is a shell game that costs the American people further energy independence and job creation.  Both are opportunities we should pursue and can achieve.”
-Congressman Bill Shuster, Chairman, House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee

“Any economy intended to give more people an avenue to middle-class jobs will have to be built on strong investment in basic infrastructure. The President surely knows it, but now he and his congressional counterparts will need to lead like they know it.”
-Transportation for America

“I am very pleased that President Obama emphasized the dire need for increased investment in America’s roads and bridges in this year’s State of the Union address…America is one big pothole and we’re facing substandard roads and bridges that are structurally deficient from coast to coast. This country is facing an infrastructure crisis and we need to take action immediately.”
-Ray LaHood, Former Secretary of Transportation

Tags: Obama Administration, President Obama, SOTU, State of the Union

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 22nd, 2015 at 3:52 pm and is filed under Aging Infrastructure, Jobs, National, Policy, The Infra Blog . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.