August 4, 2007 (LPAC)--In the aftermath of the Minnesota bridge collapse, Representatives Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and Steve LaTourette (R-Ohio) have introduced a bill to finance the improvement of physical infrastructure nationwide. "The Rebuilding America's Infrastructure Act of 2007," which they also introduced in each of the three previous Congresses, would create a Federal financing mechanism to issue zero-interest loans to localities to fund projects chosen by the states.

In December of last year, EIR described the Kucinich-LaTourette and similar proposals as "oases in the desert of almost complete neglect of our nation's economic infrastructure by Congress over the past 15 years or so," but the proposed investments of around $50 billion are much too small when the nation actually requires hundreds of billions of dollars of public investments every year, for an economic recovery to raise the real productivity and living standards of our population. The American Society of Civil Engineers has estimated that immediate needs for infrastructure investment amount to $1.7 trillion, orders of magnitude larger than are provided for in the Kucinich-LaTourette bill.