TIME TO REPAIR AMERICA

Lucas, the answer is Congress.

On October 17, unless these Tea Party Republicans drop their demands, the federal government will not be able to pay its bills. Combine that with this senseless government shutdown and the market may again lower our credit rating; like they did the last time a debt ceiling crisis was created by Tea Party Republicans in 2011.

A diminished credit rating will make it more expensive for local, state, and the federal government to do needed infrastructure upgrades by selling bonds. Communities, states, and even the federal government rely on the U.S. to have a strong bond rating to raise the money to fund needed infrastructure investments. Any damage to America's credit rating means it will cost more to do less. That will make it more expensive to fix the systems we rely on every day for transportation, communications, energy transmission, and clean water.

Lucas, tell your member of Congress to get back to work—to end the shutdown and make sure America doesn't tell the world we can't pay our bills—and focus on priorities like addressing climate change by repairing America's infrastructure.

We can fund that effort by passing the 2013 National Infrastructure Development Bank Act, which will use seed money from the government to attract private and public investment to energy, transportation, water and communication projects, which will create jobs and prepare our systems for climate change.

The Tea Party has already made us pay more to do less when they played games around the debt ceiling two years ago, and now they're at it again.

Write your member of Congress and tell them to stop the shutdown, ensure the debt ceiling doesn't come crashing down on us, and get back to work repairing our infrastructure to create good jobs and address the impacts of climate change.

Sincerely,

David Foster
Executive Director
BlueGreen Alliance

P.S. Please consider contributing to our efforts to Repair America today.