Flanked by union workers and the head of the state’s construction industry association, Sen. Richard Blumenthal on Monday called for Connecticut to support the Senate Democrats’ $1 trillion national infrastructure plan.
“We would create 15 million jobs — good, middle-class jobs” while rebuilding highways, bridges, airports, schools and water and sewer systems across the nation, Blumenthal said at a press conference.
“There’s an opportunity for bipartisan cooperation on this,” said Blumenthal, who stressed that the 10-year proposal is a starting point for negotiations with the Trump administration and the Republican majority in Congress.
Facing the multibillion-dollar cost of replacing the I-84 Hartford viaduct, the I-84 “mixmaster” interchange in Waterbury and scores of structurally deficient bridges, Connecticut needs a federal plan for coping with overdue infrastructure repairs, according to speakers who sided with Blumenthal.
“We spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year waiting in congestion,” said Lyle Wray, executive director of the Capitol Region Council of Governments. “With infrastructure, keeping up is a challenge — catching up is a bear.”
Wray said Connecticut is eager to build better mass transit connections to Boston and Manhattan, which he described as “white hot” spots for jobs and economic development.
Senate Democrats and President Donald Trump have separately said they want mass-scale infrastructure rebuilding initiatives, but haven’t specified how they’d pay for it. Trump’s administration appears to lean heavily toward public-private investment deals. Senate Democrats are more interested in a mix of closing tax loopholes, a government-sponsored infrastructure bank and an inducement to corporations to bring profits invested overseas back to the United States — at a lower-than-usual tax rate.
House Speaker Paul Ryan told Politico late last week that he expects the House to address infrastructure funding as part of a broader tax reform package, and then take up the matter of what to fix and when.
“Nothing is more important today than investing in the backbone of our nation — our lifeblood — in roads, bridges, rail, ports, airports, schools, our electric grid, broadband … the list is almost endless,” Blumenthal said. “But the truth is very simple: The background of our nation is crumbling and decaying before our eyes because we have failed to invest.”
Don Shubert, head of the Connecticut Construction Industries Association, and Keith Brothers, president of the Connecticut Laborers District Council, appeared with Blumenthal and were backed by about 20 unionized construction workers.
Key elements of the proposal include using buy America requirements for all materials and covering all work under Davis-Bacon Act wage provisions to pay local wages, Blumenthal said. He predicted Republicans in Congress will work to adopt a long-term infrastructure plan.
“They’ll be more receptive than ever before,” he said, adding, “We’re going to have to take this show on the road.”
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