Economic Recovery Plan.pdf

The United States Conference of Mayors

Release #4: January 17, 2009

MAINSTREET

“Ready to Go”

Jobs and Infrastructure Projects

Manuel A. (Manny) Diaz

Mayor of Miami

President

Tom Cochran

CEO and Executive Director

The UniTeD STATeS ConfeRenCe of MAyoRS

Community Development, Green Jobs, Transit, Streets/Highways, Airports, Amtrak, Water, Schools, Housing, Public Safety

THE UNITED STATES

CONFERENCE OF MAYORS

Manuel A. (Manny) Diaz

Mayor of Miami

President

Greg nickels

Mayor of Seattle

Vice President

elizabeth B. Kautz

Mayor of Burnsville

Second Vice President

Tom Cochran

CEO and Executive Director

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“READY TO GO” JOBS AND INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS

America’s Mayors Report to the Nation on Projects to

Strengthen Metro Economies and Create Jobs Now

Release #4: January 17, 2009

Infrastructure Jobs in Cities – “Ready to Go”

Today The U.S. Conference of Mayors releases the fourth in its series of reports on

infrastructure projects that are “ready to go” in cities across the nation – projects that meet local

infrastructure needs and contribute to local economic development goals, that can be funded

quickly through existing federal channels and start quickly when funding is received, and that

can generate the significant numbers of jobs that are needed to counter the severe economic

problems we face today in our metro areas and our nation as a whole.

Today we are reporting that, in 779 cities of all sizes in all regions of the country, a

total of 18,750 local infrastructure projects are “ready to go.” These projects represent

an infrastructure investment of $149,758,339,126 that would be capable of producing an

estimated 1,604,371 jobs in 2009 and 2010. These are the cumulative totals of projects,

required funding, and jobs to be created that have been reported in the four surveys of cities

conducted by the Conference of Mayors over the past three months. The populations of the

779 cities submitting projects total 77,946,664.

The Conference of Mayors MainStreet Economic Recovery plan, developed under the

leadership of Miami Mayor Manuel A. (Manny) Diaz, the President of the Conference, calls for

federal investments in 10 sectors that will quickly create jobs in metro areas, improve the

infrastructure that the private sector needs to succeed, help the small businesses of Main Street

America, and produce lasting economic and environmental benefits for the nation. The

following chart summarizes, for each of the 10 sectors, the number of infrastructure projects

described by the 779 cities, the total investment that would be required to implement these

projects, and the estimated number of jobs that they would generate.

SECTOR

PROJECTS FUNDING JOBS

Community Development Block Grants

4,028 26,507,901,425 385,256

Energy Block Grants and Green Jobs

1,378 30,604,966,149 151,811

Transit Equipment and Infrastructure

807 11,304,982,392 137,770

City Streets/Metro Roads

4,724 35,954,375,822 433,574

Airport Technology and Infrastructure

529 5,462,483,130 47,061

Amtrak

50 1,194,260,000 4,583

Water and Wastewater Infrastructure

4,029 23,494,889,132 271,429

School Modernization

1,066 7,082,502,544 108,336

Public Housing Modernization

634 2,474,602,762 25,160

Public Safety Jobs and Technology

1,505 5,677,375,769 39,391

Cities were invited to submit projects that reflected their unique local infrastructure

needs, produced jobs for their residents, and contributed to future economic development.

Readers of this report should note that some cities were unable to submit estimates of jobs to

be created by all of their individual projects. Because this information could not be included in

our tabulations, the total job numbers we are reporting for the cities as a group should be

considered conservative.

Mayors recognize that the economic recovery initiative to be undertaken by the new

administration and Congress will include a review process through which projects eligible for

funding will be identified. The projects listed in this report in no way represent an inventory of

projects formally proposed for funding. Rather, they are examples of the kinds of projects that,

if funded through existing channels, would contribute to local infrastructure needs and economic

development and to the President-elect’s stated goals for infrastructure revitalization and job

creation.

All projects received from mayors and cities are included by the Conference in its

reports. The mayors and cities responding to the Conference surveys have used their own

processes to determine which projects will be submitted, and the responsibility for justifying the

individual projects that are put forward resides with them.

Documenting the Need for Infrastructure Investment

In early November, cities across the nation provided the Conference of Mayors with

examples of needed infrastructure projects that could be started quickly and completed in 2009

if additional federal funding were made available for them in any of the 10 MainStreet

infrastructure investment sectors. For these projects, the cities gave us their estimates of the

amount of funding that would be needed and the number of jobs that would be created. A

report describing more than 4,600 projects in 154 cities capable of creating well over a quarter-

million jobs was released by the Conference in Washington on November 13.

A week after the release of this first report, President-elect Obama stated a goal of

creating 2.5 million jobs in America by 2011 – a goal strongly supported by the nation’s mayors.

The President-elect described a two-year initiative to rebuild the nation’s crumbling

infrastructure. In response, the Conference invited cities to again submit information on

infrastructure projects, this time on projects that could start quickly in 2009 and be completed by

the end of 2010. The report on this second survey was released in Washington, in a Capitol Hill

press conference, on December 8. It listed nearly 11,400 projects in 427 cities that were

capable of creating nearly 848,000 jobs – an estimate the Conference considers to be

conservative.

Immediately following the press conference, a delegation of mayors led by Conference

President Diaz met with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and several Committee Chairs, presented

them with copies of the report, and briefed them on the advantages of direct funding of

infrastructure projects in cities through existing programs such as the Community Development

Block Grant. The mayors’ report and proposal for economic recovery were also discussed in a

meeting which followed with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, New York Senator Charles

Schumer, and Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow, and with members of the Obama-Biden

intergovernmental transition team.

The following week, in Chicago, the survey report was included in a mayors’ meeting

with President-elect Obama, his designated Assistant for Intergovernmental Relations and

Public Liaison, Valerie Jarrett, and his designated Director of Intergovernmental Affairs, Cecilia

Munoz.

Because the Conference continued to receive requests from cities to contribute to the

published examples of “ready-to-go” projects, a third invitation to submit project information was

sent to mayors on December 10. Many new cities responded, and many of the cities included in

the Conference’s first and second reports submitted additional projects. The Conference’s third

report, released December 19, listed well over 15,000 projects in 641 cities capable of

producing more than 1.2 million jobs.

Responding again to cities’ requests to add projects to the Conference’s growing “ready

to go” list, a fourth invitation to submit information was sent to mayors on December 29. As this

report shows, the projects added by new cities, along with those added by cities included in the

earlier reports, again significantly increased our total estimates of federal infrastructure funding

that could be invested and jobs that could be created.

A Call to Action – More Urgent Each Day

Over the past year, the scope of the economic crisis affecting Main Street America has

been well documented and widely reported. As we enter 2009, economic activity continues to

slow and the labor market continues to deteriorate. Consumer spending, business investment,

and industrial production continues to decline. Problems affecting financial markets and credit

conditions remain unresolved. We know that, as the economy weakens and joblessness

increases, the current real estate foreclosure crisis can only worsen.

The nation’s unemployment rate reached 7.2 percent in December, 2.3 percentage

points higher than a year ago. Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the nation

has lost 3.6 million jobs. About 11.1 million American workers are now unemployed, another

1.9 million are “marginally attached” to the labor force (meaning that they have looked

unsuccessfully for work at some point in the past year), and recent calculations suggest that one

in every eight workers is now underemployed. The ranks of the long-term unemployed (those

jobless for 27 weeks or more) doubled in 2008, to 2.6 million; claims for unemployment benefits

are at the highest level in a quarter-century; and, in many states across the nation, the extended

benefits that have been paid to the long-term unemployed will soon be cut off.

In today’s world, metro economies drive the national economy, currently accounting for

86 percent of national employment, 90 percent of labor income, and 90 percent of gross

domestic product (GDP). It should be obvious that investing in Main Street metro

economies is the most direct path to creating the jobs and stimulating the business that

can begin to resolve the current economic crisis.

Washington has used hundreds of billions of federal dollars to bail out Wall Street,

banks, insurance companies and others, and hopes that this investment will eventually be

returned to the U.S. Treasury and the taxpayer. It is now time for Washington to make another

kind of investment, one that guarantees a return: It is time to initiate MainStreet Economic

Recovery – immediate and direct assistance that enables local governments and the

private sector to invest in the infrastructure and create the jobs that will help restore this

nation’s economic growth.

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