Issue Position: National Infrastructure

Issue Position

The technology revolution has pushed a lot of lower-skilled people into unemployment. And yet everywhere around us we see roads that need to be widened or repaired, bridges that are beginning to crumble and others that need to be built, traffic jams from clogged highways, schools that need to be built, expanded or repaired, inner city neighborhoods with cracked sidewalks, broken windows and people on the street. Franklin Roosevelt mobilized a nation whose unemployment rate had reached 25 percent. The Civilian Conservation Corps planted trees and cleared land. We built roads, put people to work, cleaned things up. Dwight D. Eisenhower's vision brought us the Interstate Highway system -- and the jobs it took to build it. There are people who need jobs and there is work to be done. And along the way, I believe it is possible to meld such a program with another one, featuring adult education for those who did lose their way when they were seventeen and now know how important it is, as a worker and as a parent, to get that diploma, earn some money, and be a role model for your kids.

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