Nice article by Joe Klein on infrastructure bank

[karynnj]

I just got off the phone with Senator John Kerry, who told me more about his Infrastructure Bank proposal. It sounds pretty good to me. The basic bottom line is this: a $10 billion federal contribution will leverage about $640 billion in private investments…money from entities as diverse as union pension funds to foreign sovereign wealth funds–that is, the immense funds that countries like China and Kuwait are using to invest in the private sector. Kerry said the money would be invested in three areas…

water, energy and transportation projects. The projects will be judged by an independent board filled with “both private and public sector engineering experts.” The loans–and these will only be interest-bearing loans, not government grants–will be for projects of $100 million or more, with “a smaller set-aside program for rural projects of $25 million or more.”

Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2011/07/11/more-creamed-spinach/#ixzz1Rr0thz3q

Not sure how much I can post as it is short.

The Hill has an article where the title says that Obama wants to push for the infrastructure bank right after the debt stuff.

Making the case that it was important for Congress to agree on a deal to raise the federal debt ceiling, President Obama said Monday that doing so could free lawmakers to consider other job creation ideas, such as the infrastructure bank proposed by Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas).

http://thehill.com/blogs/transportation-report/highways-bridges-and-roads/170681-obama-pushes-for-infrastructure-bank-proposal-after-debt-deal

[ladym55]

1. I'm glad to see JK pushing forward on this

We need this investment so desperately. And all I seem to hear about is the debt ceiling. We need to get responsible and all act like grown-ups. We need to invest in our infrastructure and look forward. Senator Kerry keeps trying to bring this issue forward and get us all to pay attention.