Commentary: Stronger infrastructure benefits Delaware and the nation

Build Back Better proposal is ... a yearslong investment plan that will use ‘Buy American’ rules to put American manufacturers to work rebuilding long-neglected infrastructure (like the pipes that keep leaking sewage into the St. Jones River) and the infrastructure the future economy is already demanding.”

The United States’ economy has absorbed a body blow from the COVID-19 pandemic. This virus has drained the financial resources of millions of our fellow Americans, who now can’t cover rent, pay utilities or reliably buy groceries because of wages lost while the virus circulates throughout the country. It has caused commerce to creak and strain.

And underneath it all, so does the literal infrastructure on which it all rides.

Whether it’s a water main break in Blades or an interstate highway bridge in Cincinnati, there are projects big and small across the country that need fixing. Will this be the year we finally address it?

President Joe Biden plans to spend a lot of his early-term political capital to make it happen, using his Build Back Better plan.

First, Washington is helping the economy get back on its feet — that’s the economic stimulus bill working its way through Congress right now, with a price tag that reflects the enormity of the crisis we’re facing. But after this stimulus, the recovery must be sustained. It must be a stable, prescriptive investment that will pay off in the years ahead in increased economic competitiveness. And it must be the kind of program that will spread the wealth around.

That means it must be an American-made infrastructure bill.

That’s what the Build Back Better proposal is at heart: a yearslong investment plan that will use “Buy American” rules to put American manufacturers to work rebuilding long-neglected infrastructure (like the pipes that keep leaking sewage into the St. Jones River) and the infrastructure the future economy is already demanding (like the thousands of charging stations the gradual shift to electric vehicles will require). Those will be needed across Delaware, too. The Biden proposal will make federal resources available to address both. It has the potential to create millions of new jobs in this country, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Jobs building the material that will make up our infrastructure are the kind that pay a premium wage to workers with less than a four-year degree. They’re precisely the kind the market needs more of right now.

And yet this proposal is far more than a jobs program. Build Back Better represents a step toward the national industrial policy our country needs to keep pace in a fiercely competitive global economy. There’s a reason the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is running ads encouraging Congress to pass an infrastructure bill like this: Businesses will benefit from more efficient logistics that modern infrastructure will provide them.

After a recent meeting with Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., and others from the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee, President Biden put a more specific point on the challenge the U.S. faces: China, he said, is going to “eat our lunch” if we fail to make the repairs and upgrades needed to remain competitive. He’s not wrong. The Chinese economy is going to be the world’s largest in only a few years, and we’ll fall further behind if we don’t invest in ourselves.

Take the competition out of it, though, and consider our national interest: Build Back Better is a chance to seriously rejuvenate a range of critical American industries that we clearly have a need for. It’s alarming that we’re facing a semiconductor-production shortage that could potentially hamstring the development of 5G industries; it’s dangerous that we still lack a reliable network of medical-supply manufacturers over a year into a pandemic. Sizeable commitments to “Buy American” purchasing and research and development spending are huge parts of this proposal. Make them, and we can create an industrial ecosystem in this country that will mean economic resiliency.

That resiliency should be of interest to every one of our elected representatives. So when Build Back Better comes up for a vote, supporting it shouldn’t be a question of politics. There are no red bridges or blue highways in America, but there are plenty of dilapidated examples of both.

Rebuild them, and set the underpinnings of the coming economy by investing in infrastructure in 2021.

Scott Paul is the president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing.