Talking Michigan Transportation

Sen. Gary Peters makes his case for the Biden infrastructure plan

June 03, 2021 Michigan Department of Transportation Season 3 Episode 59
Talking Michigan Transportation
Sen. Gary Peters makes his case for the Biden infrastructure plan
Show Notes Transcript

This week, U.S. Sen. Gary Peters joins the podcast to talk about his advocacy for President Biden’s comprehensive infrastructure proposal, The American Jobs Plan. Peters is traveling the state to advocate for the administration’s plan. He was in Grand Rapids Wednesday for conversations with a number of representatives involved in various components of infrastructure, including MDOT Director Paul Ajegba, Grand Rapids Mayor Rosalynn Bliss, Anthony Tuttle of the West Michigan Cybersecurity Consortium, Erin Kuhn of the West Michigan Shoreline Regional Development Commission and a member of the Michigan Infrastructure Council, and Laurel Joseph of the Grand Valley Metropolitan Council.  

The senator recorded the podcast following the Grand Rapids event Wednesday. He participated in a similar event in Lansing on Thursday.  

Peters discussed the ongoing negotiations and whether reconciliation was an option. Meanwhile, the president met again this week with West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito to broker a compromise and floated another $1 trillion plan on Thursday as outlined in a Wall Street Journal story (Subscription). The reporting indicated that under the president’s suggestion, the biggest companies would pay a minimum corporate tax of 15 percent, according to people briefed on the matter. Unlike Mr. Biden’s proposed corporate tax-rate increase to 28 percent or changes to taxes on U.S. companies’ foreign income, the minimum tax wouldn’t directly reverse the 2017 law.  

In the roundtable conversations, Peters pointed out that we can save more money if we invest in infrastructure now than we will if we push off investments. In fact, the senator mentioned that for every dollar invested in infrastructure, you end up saving close to $7 of taxpayer money in the long run. He pointed to the Gordie Howe International Bridge as an example of investments up front that pay big dividends in the future because of the importance to the economies in Michigan and Canada. 

MDOT photo: Senator Peters and MDOT Director Paul Ajegba at a round table event in Lansing. 

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Jeff Cranson: Hello, this is the Talking Michigan Transportation podcast. I'm Jeff Cranson, director of communications at the Michigan Department of Transportation.

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Cranson: This week, as President Biden holds onto hope for a bipartisan agreement for major investments in our nation's infrastructure, U.S. Senator Gary Peters in Michigan is traveling the state to advocate for the administration's plan. He was in Grand Rapids Wednesday for conversations with a number of representatives involved in various components of infrastructure including Mayor Rosalynn Bliss, MDOT Director Paul Ajegba, and several others. He participated in similar conversations in Lansing Thursday and is meeting in other cities as well. So, we know the President met again this week with Republican Senator Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia. You talked about this a little bit in your stop in Grand Rapids. Are you optimistic that he can really make a breakthrough with any of your colleagues on the other side of the aisle?

U.S. Senator Gary Peters: Well, I’m hopeful. I always like to work in a bipartisan way. I think that always is the best way to proceed. Certainly, that's how I pass a lot of legislation I’ve been able to pass is I work with the Republican on the other side. We come together to find common ground, and I would hope that would occur when it comes to infrastructure. Infrastructure should not be a partisan issue. It's about making sure we're making the investments in 21st century infrastructure and it’s broadly defined in a way to include not just roads and bridges, but critical elements like high-speed broadband internet, making sure we have cyber security to protect critical infrastructure, underground infrastructure, sewers, water. And I’m hoping that we'll be able to come together and understand that this is the time to invest. This should not be considered just spending money. It should be considered investing money. And we're at a time of record low interest rates. This is a time to borrow to make those investments, but, certainly, we also need to have pay force in addition to that borrowing. But this is a good time to be making those investments and, certainly, critical for our economy when it comes to the jobs created from construction projects, but also critical for our economy broadly. If you look at the most successful economies in the world it's because they've invested in infrastructure that powers that economy.

Cranson: So, when you think about your time in congress and before that your time, you know, in public service at the state and local level, it seems like everybody says, ‘Well, infrastructure is the one thing you know both sides agree on.’ And I, myself, get a little tired of that cliché because the only agreement is that, you know, we need good infrastructure. There isn't a lot of agreement about how to pay for it, right?

Senator Peters: Yeah, that's where it breaks down. We all want infrastructure, although the top line is always the one that's debated. That's a big part of what it is right now. I believe that you do need to go big and bold. That's certainly where President Biden is. What we've been hearing from my Republican colleagues is they want a much smaller package, but the needs are extensive. You look at the amount of money that we need to invest, and we should be making that investment. The one thing, and you know full well, about infrastructure is it doesn't get any cheaper. Holding off doesn't end up saving taxpayer money. In fact, it means it's more expensive. if you look at the infrastructure that deteriorates, it's always more expensive to fix that than just trying to maintain it and make investments along the way. So, to me, as a guy who spent most of my career in the private sector in the investment world, this is an investment that is necessary right now to make these investments. So, I would hope that that part would not be partisan, but it is because folks have different top lines. And then the pay force, as you mentioned, is always an issue as well.

Cranson: So, talk a little bit about that and your background in banking and the expertise you bring in that area, and what the President's American Jobs plan and his proposed methods of paying for it and why you think it's a good plan.

Senator Peters: Well, you know, he's looking—one part of it will be to roll back some of the big tax cuts that occurred a few years ago that primarily benefited just major corporations who have posted record profits, as well as some of the absolute wealthiest individuals in the country. That big tax break was about a $2 trillion-dollar impact to the economy. And that $2 trillion, certainly, I believe, would be better suited, or better used, by investing in infrastructure that benefits everybody in the country, not just a few.

Cranson: So, did you hear anything in your conversations today? You had, you know, the MDOT Director Paul Ajegba, you had Grand Rapids Mayor Rosalynn Bliss, some representatives from the Michigan Infrastructure Council and from the metropolitan planning organization here, the Grand Valley Metro Council, all unique perspectives. Cyber security was represented, labor was represented, the plumbers and pipefitters. Anything that surprised you or, I guess, that you feel like you can take back and talk about with your colleagues in Washington?

Senator Peters: Well, certainly but, you know, I think the one thing that is really clear as I talk to people all across Michigan and listen to what's on their mind, and I’m in the middle of that tour right now before I head back to D.C., I’ll be in a number of communities, talking to community leaders, one thing that comes out loud and clear is the list of needs is long. That was the one thing—as each person talked about some of the challenges that they face and the needs that their communities have, there was no shortage of ideas of things that that must get done. And then I challenged them all to come up with a top priority, and even with the top priority most of them had two or three priorities. I think it illustrates the magnitude of the problem that we're dealing with when it comes to infrastructure. So, when folks talk about trying to downsize the amount of investment, it's not going to deal with what we have to deal with as a as a country right now, and it's thinking more broadly about infrastructure than we have in the in the past. As I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast here, it's more than roads and bridges. It's all sorts of other kinds of investments including, as we heard today, cyber security. It is something that we didn't think about in the last century, but cyber security is a critically important piece of infrastructure. It protects our infrastructure—especially critical infrastructure. We just recently experienced a major hack on a pipeline system that had a major impact on our economy. Just over the weekend, food processors were hit by a cyber-attack. So, whenever we're talking about infrastructure, however defined, you also have to be thinking about cyber.

Cranson: So, you've been an advocate—

Senator Peters: And homeland security.

Cranson: You've been an advocate for this from the beginning. I mean, even in congress, and before then you were following what's going on with what is now called the Gordie Howe International Bridge and our partnership with Canada. And I like that you talk about it in terms of an investment. You know that the governor decided to, you know, use some of the bonding capacity to go out to try to make a dent in our major freeways, especially in the busiest parts of the state, with a $3.5-billion-dollar investment. And she's been criticized by some, you know, because of the debt that's involved in that. But given what you know about investments that pay off and what you know, certainly, in your background in the banking committee and the House and other parts of that world, there is good debt and bad debt. And, certainly, not fixing our roads and leaving those to our children and our grandchildren is its own form of debt. Can you talk about that?

Senator Peters: Well, it is. You're absolutely right. It is, and when you're thinking about, you know, good debt, you finance long-term projects. Most people don't pay for their house with cash. They take out a mortgage, and they pay for it over their time over time because they know their house will last 30 or more— hopefully a lot more years than that—but you pay for it over a long period of time. It’s the same thing with our roads and bridges. These are long-term investments that can be paid for over time and you borrow money in order to put the infrastructure in place, which drives the economy. You know, you mentioned the Gordie Howe Bridge is a prime example of that in enhancing trade between Canada and the United States, and Michigan benefits so greatly by that international trade. In fact, I think it's interesting that if Michigan were a country, we would be Canada’s second largest trading partner in the world, just our state. That's the amount of activity that is generated in our state from Canada, but in order to facilitate that then, in order to grow that trade, you need infrastructure and make sure that we have other arteries for that trade to occur. So, the Gordie Howe Bridge will pay huge dividends over a long period of time. It's worth every penny of an investment up front.

Cranson: Yeah, well said. So, you talked a little bit, too, about the impact that a warming planet is having on our infrastructure, certainly our roads and bridges, and, you know, what investments in resiliency can do. Talk about why that's important.

Senator Peters: Well, it's critically important. As you mentioned with climate change, we know, for example, storms, we're getting increased frequency of storms, and not only the frequency but the intensity of those storms. Mass flooding events, we've seen certainly those events occur in Michigan, and they can cause significant damage. And fixing that damage is very expensive. And it's important, one, when we build that infrastructure that we build it more resilient to deal with changing weather patterns, but, also, we can improve the infrastructure we have now. Part of the improvements is to making it more resilient to a future adverse storm impact, and the numbers are so compelling. As an investment guy, the numbers are so clear that every dollar you invest in making infrastructure more resilient, you end up saving close to $7 of taxpayer money in the in the long run. And I think there are very few people who would walk away from an investment, and you can tell them you're basically going to save $7 for every dollar you give me, most people will jump at that. And that's why making these investments are so critical, particularly when it comes to enhancing the resilience of the projects that we're working on.

Cranson: So, that people can kind of relate to. That's a tangible aspect of building roads and bridges. What do you say to the critics, your colleagues on the other side of the aisle, who say ‘This thing is way too broad, you know? You're defining infrastructure way too broadly, and that it's a lot of pork.’ What's your answer to that?

Senator Peters: Well, I don't think you can. In fact, it came out of the panel today as a prime example, you talk about saying that infrastructure is too broad, we heard a long list of projects that showed that infrastructure, particularly in the 21st century, means a lot of things. There's certainly aspects of the president's plan, too, that I think are critical in terms of human infrastructure. It's not just the physical infrastructure and that's education. So, talking about things like making sure that children have access to preschool and for the pre-k training. There's another example of an investment. It's not current spending. It really should be viewed as an investment. We know every child that has the opportunity to go to preschool ends up actually returning the taxpayers a big return on that investment in terms of their lifelong earnings, for example. Making sure that community colleges are available for people and skills training. I heard today, in the panel, from the importance of folks in the building trades. Right now, we have a number of construction projects, so we need to hire more people that have the specialized skills in building. Those are great paying jobs and don't require a college degree, but you do need skilled training. But that investment in skill training pays huge dividends not just to the individuals who go through that training, but society as a whole.

Cranson: Yeah, that's exactly right. Well, thank you, Senator, for taking time to do this. I really appreciate it.

Senator Peters: Great to be with you, Jeff. Thank you for all of your work and leadership. I appreciate you.

Cranson: Thank you again for listening to this week's edition of the Talking Michigan Transportation podcast. I would like to thank Randy Debler and Corey Petee for engineering this week's podcast. To subscribe to show notes and more, go to Apple podcasts and search for Talking Michigan Transportation.