Public Infrastructure

An important debate over fiscal policy is beginning to take place within the Democratic Party. For the past 15 years, deficit hawks within the party have argued that addressing America’s fiscal challenges should take priority over our public investment needs, suggesting that, in effect, we cannot afford to increase public investment until we have reduced the federal deficit.

But there is an alternate view, holding that the deficit hawk position neither accurately reflects America’s true economic strength nor… more

Let’s stipulate, up front, that there’s plenty of blame to go all around on Katrina.

Two years ago this week, and ever since, a Republican president, a Democratic governor and a Democratic mayor have all seemed to be competing for the prize of "most incompetent." And also, let’s just say it and get it out of the way: During the hurricane and its aftermath, some of the people of New Orleans haven’t acquitted themselves very well, either.

But the real lesson of… more

New America's report on infrastructure funding, highlighted in this Washington Post editorial, was written by Sherle R. Schwenniger, director of the Economic Growth Program, and is part of Ten Big Ideas for a New America. To view Schwenninger's proposal online, please click here.

The cause of the deadly bridge collapse in Minneapolis on Aug. 1 is still unknown. But since the span plunged into the Mississippi River, the question of how to finance a generation's worth of… more

Michael Lind is a Senior Research Fellow and Policy Director of New America's Economic Growth Program. He is the author, with Ted Halstead, of The Radical Center: The Future of American Politics (Doubleday, 2001). He is also the author of Made in Texas: George W. Bush and the Southern Takeover… more