Rebuilding America

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial page's observation on Sunday, timed for Labor Day and a scheduled presidential speech in Milwaukee, was simple and to the point: There aren't enough jobs.

On Monday, President Barack Obama, making that Milwaukee speech, demonstrated that he understands this. He proposed a $50 billion plan to rebuild the nation's roads, railways, runways and transit systems, and, more long-term, setting up an "infrastructure bank" that will, according to the president, "leverage federal dollars and focus on the smartest investments."

In weighing this proposal, here's all Congress need absorb: The nation's infrastructure needs rebuilding — a lot of it immediately and the rest over time. The nation desperately needs jobs. And the economy just as desperately needs the spending that people with jobs do.

There is no better time than right now for the federal government to ramp up infrastructure spending.

The president pledged that this new spending "will be fully paid for and will not add to the deficit over time." We await details.

Already, however, GOP congressional leaders were falling back on their favorite plan: "No."

As there are simply more people looking for work than there are jobs, this is not even good politics, much less sound policy.

Candidates in this election cycle will be tempted to pledge to reject this federal spending. They will do this to demonstrate how fiscally pure they are, that they are the toughest deficit hawks on the block. They will ignore that some deficit spending during a recession is advisable and conveniently choose to disbelieve the president's pledge to work with Congress to make this spending deficit neutral.

Given that today's candidates may become tomorrow's representatives, we'd ask that they remember this: Wisconsin's infrastructure is in as much a state of disrepair as anywhere, and the state traditionally doesn't get its fair share of federal dollars. These would be merely Wisconsin dollars returning home to rebuild infrastructure here and putting Wisconsinites back to work.

Saying "no" to that would be irresponsible.

REPRINTED FROM THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL.

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