Let’s fix our bridges—now

by E. Teresa Touey

We have an absolute responsibility to ensure public safety in the Commonwealth. We can do this, create jobs, and spur business while doing what we need to do anyway. Let’s fix our bridges and let’s fix them now.

Pennsylvania leads the nation in structurally deficient bridges. If elected, I would use my congressional office to bring a sense of urgency to solving this problem. There are 41 historic Delaware County bridges tgat lie in the 7th District or just outside it. Sixty-eight percent of these bridges are appraised as functionally obsolete or structurally deficient. Focusing on improving the conditions of these bridges would generate local jobs. I would monitor the competitive bidding process of these contracts to local firms to hire local employees. I would recommend that any winning firms hire unemployed workers.

This kind of spending by the federal government has serious and positive multiplier effects. During his administration, Gov. Ed Rendell has increased spending on infrastructure from $200 million to $700 million. Coupled with money from President Obama’s stimulus package, Rendell has has demonstrated that such spending yields measurable, specific business increases. For instance, in the first ten months of 2009, 4,300 tons of more steel orders and 3.2 million tons of more asphalt orders were placed as well as the firms that support these companies. Direct and indirect jobs are clearly at stake.

My challenge in this congressional race is to persuade the voters of the 7th District that I have the willingness to find practical, creative ways to get things done in a common sense way for the country, the Commonwealth, and the district. I want to use my cooperative education at Drexel University in accounting and economics, along with my graduate degree in international accounting and finance at the London School of Economics, matched with my 20 years of business, government, and non-profit consulting to identify and solve problems for the voters of the district.

In his latest budget, President Obama has called for further investment in green jobs and infrastructure renewal. Many critics, including my Republican opponent, former U.S. Attorney Pat Meehan, say that President Obama is finger pointing and blaming others for the lagging economy. Instead, I’m looking to see what in the budget can be used to help the people of the 7th District.

In this year’s State of the Union address, President Obama pointed out that most of the debt vilified by Republicans happened on the watch of a Republican president and Congress that never paid for: “two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program.” And as Frank Rich of the The New York Times pointed out: ”The historian Alan Brinkley has observed that we will soon enter the fourth decade in which Congress—and therefore government as a whole—has failed to deal with any major national problem, from infrastructure to education. The gridlock isn’t only a function of polarized politics and special interests. There’s also been a gaping leadership deficit.”

This assessment of the state of the Union leaves me asking myself: How are the voters feeling about this lack of leadership and how do I begin to introduce my vision for serving the needs of the voters of this district? My postman at the Glenolden post office, when asked about his reaction to the speech, encouraged me to take the president’s advice—use common sense. Repairing our bridges is a piece of that common sense.

The writer is a Democratic candidate in the 7th Congressional District.