Sec. 2. Findings

434 words·~2 min read·/bill/116/hr/6422/ih/section-2

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Congress finds the following: Throughout our Nation’s history, national banks have played a crucial role in financing our Nation’s public infrastructure, which in turn contributed to the United States becoming the world’s leading producing nation. Canals, the Transcontinental Railroad, the Hoover Dam, rural electrification, and the national system of roads and bridges are all examples of investments in infrastructure that created the conditions for improved productivity, job creation, and economic growth.

Four previous national banks financed such infrastructure, each according to a development plan: The First (1791–1811) and Second (1816–1836) Banks of the United States, President Lincoln’s national banking system, and President Franklin Roosevelt’s Reconstruction Finance Corporation (1932–1957). However, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers

(ASCE)in a 2017 report, the current condition of the infrastructure in the United States earns a grade point average of D+, and an estimated $4,590,000,000,000 investment is needed by 2025 to bring the following systems to a state of good repair (amounts in parentheses): Roads, bridges, and transit ($2,042,000,000,000). Electricity grids ($934,000,000,000). Schools ($870,000,000,000). Dams, levees, waterways, and ports ($162,000,000,000). Airports ($157,000,000,000). Rail ($154,000,000,000). Drinking water and wastewater systems ($150,000,000,000). Public parks and recreation ($114,000,000,000). Hazardous and solid waste ($7,000,000,000). In addition, expanded investment is needed in new manufacturing centers, affordable housing, broadband access, science and technology drivers, to accommodate population growth and migration, and for other improvements in rural, urban, and low-income areas that the private sector is not currently serving. Although Federal grant programs, along with matching State and local funding, should continue to play a central role in financing infrastructure in the United States, current and foreseeable demands on existing Federal, State, and local budgets exceed the resources to support these programs by a wide margin. ASCE estimates that funds are available for only about half of the infrastructure it currently monitors. Meanwhile, long-term savers, including central banks, pension funds, corporations, sovereign wealth funds, and insurance companies, have a growing interest in infrastructure investment. The establishment of a United States public deposit money bank would provide direct loans and other financing of up to $4,000,000,000,000 for qualifying infrastructure projects. Such funding would be adequate to finance all of the United States identified infrastructure needs, in all parts of the country, according to strategic plans. At the same time, it would return the United States to its most recent golden age when a National Infrastructure Bank was in place (1933–1957), during which time total factor productivity advanced by 3.5 percent per year, the economy grew on average 5.5 percent per year, income inequality fell by one-third, and Federal and State tax receipts rose dramatically.