Bullet Summary of the National Infrastructure Bank (NIB):

House Bill HR 4052 creates a $5 trillion National Infrastructure Bank

with No New Federal Debt or Taxes

Last Updated January 18, 2022

Expected Benefits of the National Infrastructure Bank (NIB), HR 4052:

• Large Enough – $5 trillion over 10 years – to address all of our nation's failing infrastructure.
• Rebuilds Crumbling Infrastructure Everywhere: more mass transit/high speed rail, less traffic congestion and CO2 pollution; lead-free water; new schools, affordable housing and broadband, reliable electricity grids; enough funding for every single state, county, and city.
• Workers: creates 25 million new jobs paying Davis Bacon wages. Buy America; project labor agreements. Hires from among 40 million American working poor, providing training and permanent, great-paying new jobs. Stimulates union membership and minority hiring.
• Engineers/Contractors/Manufacturers/Other Businesses: lots more business from all the new construction. Economy more productive and profitable; trucks move faster; lowers inflation. Promotes Small and Disadvantaged Business Enterprises, including through Minority Business Enterprise Program.
• Economy: Supercharges the economy, pushing up long-term growth from 1.8%/year, to 5%/year. Forecasts by U. of Maryland INFORUM also used in ASCE 2021 Failure to Act Reports.
• Addresses Poverty and Income Inequality: Ensures money reaches every rural, urban, and low-income community. Lower paid workers earn more. Ends housing insecurity. Provides grants for low-income municipalities. Projects designed to provide environmental justice.
• Federal and State Budgets: Complements existing Federal and State spending on infrastructure. Vastly improves revenues from new growth. Reduces National Debt as % of GDP.

Expected Costs:

• Requires no new Federal Debt or new Taxes. No other Infrastructure or Jobs Proposal is Budget Neutral like this one. Very small appropriation to begin operations (reimbursed).
• Loan rate: = Treasury Bond rate is the most affordable. Loan maturity = investment’s lifetime.
• Flexible loan repayment: States, counties, cities, utilities, authorities, and cooperatives can repay loans out of general revenues (spurred by growth), special revenues, or user fees.

How The NIB Works:

• Modeled on Four Previous Public Banks that built most of America's infrastructure. International competitors (China, Japan, Europe) use this same large, public bank model.
• Created: as a government-owned, depository/lending bank. Independent, with full disclosures.
• Capitalized: with privately-owned Treasuries (same method as four NIBs in our nation’s past); Treasuries exchanged for preferred stock paying 0.5 - 2%/year extra.
• Lends: the same as any commercial bank, up to a total of $5 trillion, creating an equal deposit as each loan is approved.
• Well-targeted infrastructure project selection and mobilization: with maximum input from States and Regional Economic Accelerator Planning Groups. Coordinates with state One-Stop-Application Portals.
• Starts Lending Immediately. Focuses on backlog of state capital projects; replacing all lead service lines. Can begin with $50 billion in capital, and $500 billion in loans, in first year.
• Loan Monitoring: Ensures projects stay on track, and all groups benefit fairly.
• NIB earns up to $120 billion/year: pays for overhead, dividend to Government; interest on deposits; with remainder deposited in a Trust Fund for grants to low-income areas.

NIB is Superior to Any Other Option:

• Bipartisan Infrastructure Act of 2021 (IIJA) is too small. $550 billion of new money is 1/10^th of what is needed. It falls way short on water infrastructure, mass transit, high speed rail, and the power grid. Funding will not reach smaller cities or rural/poor areas. The World Bank says that the recently passed infrastructure law would do little to buttress growth in the near term.
• More spending can’t be added to the Federal Budget, given concerns over the very large size of the U.S. National debt.
• Other Infrastructure Bank Bills in Congress are also 1/10^th too small to build everything. They need big outlays from the budget to start operations; and require Public Private Partnerships (P3s) charging tolls. P3s cover only 1-3% of all needs, are more expensive than municipal financing, monopolize the transportation network, and do not alleviate traffic congestion.
• The cost of doing nothing is extreme: Infrastructure will fail and cost lives. It will become more vulnerable to ravages from climate change. Poverty and income inequality will worsen. The economy and jobs will slide backwards. And the U.S. will lose international competitiveness.
• The National Infrastructure Bank solves all of the above problems, with its well-conceived financing plan.

How You Can Help:

Write or call your Member of Congress today, and ask him/her to co-Sponsor HR 4052, the National Infrastructure Bank Act of 2021, to create great-paying jobs in your area.