Today we Americans look forward to the future with more hope than in recent memory. The bill that I have just signed, our new Infrastructure Project, is not earth shattering in terms of ideas. None of our plans had not already been practiced somewhere. But the bill is momumental because so many things are going to get done that have needed to be done for many years.

When people talk about infrastructure, they usually mean highways, railroads, waterways and airports. I will talk about these.

First though, since we live in an age of communication, I will speak about communication. Because of the importance of computers and television, access needs to be available to everyone.

The Federal Government will assist married couples and single people earning less than the standard threshold. The government will pay for a satellite dish, cable TV hookup and internet access.

In the past, many rural areas and all poor school districts had no access to cable television or the internet. Now the Federal Government is requiring cable and internet providers to serve rural areas. For poor school districts, the government is funding computer labs at all the schools.

The government will assist schools in other ways. Local school districts will continue to pay for academics. The federal government will fund music departments in middle schools and high schools. Treasuries will be sold to finance career programs and manual skill programs such as computer repair, graphic arts, electrical repair and woodshop.

Treasuries will also be sold to construct new hospitals and to expand and refurbish existing ones.

Communication, Education, Health. These come first. As part of our health policy, in addition to the program for hospitals is a program for drinking water. Pruification plants will be constructed in all the parts of the country where water quality is not as high as it was.

The quality of air has also been targeted for improvement. All airports will be connected to their urban center by a lite rail system. Rail service on Amtrak will be greatly expanded.

Though we need to reduce our dependency on the automobile and the pollution it causes, we cannot not pollute. We can only make pollution less bad.

We wil upgrade our railroad right of ways so trains run smoother and faster and use less fuel.

Now here is one part of the bill that caused controversy. The bill has arranged for the construction of six new oil refineries: two on the east, west and gulf coasts. The facilities are planned to be several times less polluting than older refineries. The benefits to the nation in terms of supply and price of gasoline will be great.

But it isn’t just the money saved and the convenience of not worrying about running out of gasoline. The vision for the refineries shows that we are finally brave enough to say we will do something about our overall decline in manufacturing.

While the refineries are being constructed, highways will be improved. Americas bridges will be made sounder. For those who live along interstate and U.S. highways, sound walls will be constructed to keep noise out of neighborhoods.

Like those along freeways need to be protected from the noise of traffic, those who live along rivers need to be protected from floods. Levees will be upgraded with federal funding.

The last area I want to cover is the technologies that were introduced in the 1970s and 1980s. The federal government is providing funding for solar panels on new buildings. This will reduce the need for non-renewable forms of electricity and allow for smoother operation of our electrical grids.

On federal lands, wind turbines wil be installed to generate electricity. With the fear that droughts will increase, this was a necessary step.

In closing I am grateful to members of the house and senate who worked tirelessly on this bill. I also want to thank those in industry, government, business and academia who provided their expertise.

These projects that I have described should make us proud that America is back on track, that after so many years of unnecessary war, we are beginning to do what we should have started thirty years ago.

Copyright © 2025 by David Vaszko