Looking for at least one positive from the recent national election, let’s launch a massive new infrastructure program to upgrade and expand our facilities and services! These efforts usually stimulate the economy and put people to work. A dual funding strategy is needed that focuses on state of good repair/ normal replacement and implementing delayed expansions. With the national budget focused on Social Security /Medicare payments and fighting wars, innovative and new funding sources are needed.
Fortunately many innovative approaches exist but they need to be applied much more than they are currently used. A national infrastructure bank, transit impact fees and public-private partnerships are just a few examples . However, a major new potential funding program, that also has bipartisan support, deals with taxing foreign corporate profits. The current untaxed amounts are estimated to be between $2-3 trillion dollars.
If these were taxed at the required federal tax rate of 35%,the yield could approach 1 or more trillion dollars. In addition, we should also apply the lessons learned from the Obama stimulus package of 2009 during the deep recession. Then and now we had one party in charge in the executive and legislative branches so timing is crucial to have this initiative effectuated.
Dr. Floyd Lapp, FAICP
