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captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2008 captioning performed by vitac if we had that dedicated funding source for the 40 years of metro's history. so i think that's heartening. but also, people are smart. right? they see the gridlock on our streets. especially in metropolitan areas where people are flocking to cities. they know that if we are to maintain our growth that we have to take advantage of our entire system. so that's public transportation. that's biking and that's bridges. i like to use an example that's

just emblematic of what the federal government has failed to do. we have a bridge crosses between the district of columbia in virginia. it belongs to the federal government and all of us have been fighting over who's going to fix the bridge. it belongs to the national park service. and the national park service has, you know, evidently a lot of bridges across the country that are in similar disrepair. so the leadership, i couldn't agree with my friend from the chamber more that a lot of these questions are about leadership. and we just had this -- i had this discussion just recently with my chief financial officer. i want to ask my colleagues in maryland and virginia, the voters in the district, they're going to have to ask their voters to do something we may not be around for. none of us. when the real bill comes due for metro, it's going to be five, six years from now but it is coming due and what are we going to do to say, right now, even though i may or may not be here,

i may have to ask the tough question to get additional revenue to fix it, but all of us have to say -- this is what i'm saying. i want to be the mayor that works with these governors to fix it. not the next one. these governors to fix it once and for all and i think all the members of the congress -- this is what it comes down to when we're talking about our bridge that connects washington, d.c. and the commonwealth of virginia, that no -- we don't have two senators as you know to go make this argument for us. i'm just saying. we don't have -- [ laughter ] so i talk to their senators and they have to talk to their governor but everybody across the country is kind of, you know, scrapping for that same bridge reconstruction. and so, we do really need a plan. if i can do it for my infrastructure in the district, certainly we can expect that of our federal agencies to say this

is -- these are the priorities that have to get done but starving the national park service is not the way to get there. and i like to add an additional thing to what we have heard, in addition to transportation and communication and energy. i would like us to think of affordable housing as a critical part of our infrastructure, as well. because as affordable housing crumbles in cities, they just change the character of our cities. and the federal government has been a partner. less so recently and i expect moving forward will be even less involved in housing but for the affordable housing that has been supported by the feds, we like to approach a way to keep it affordable. >> you mentioned the voters' willingness to pass, you know, taxes to pay for infrastructure. you know, generally that's true if it's not an increase in taxes. if it's an encrease it's much,

much tougher. there's a couple of other evolution that is affect the built environment. one is health. i think we are realizing that the built environment affects health more than we previously realized. in oklahoma city we have redesigned the downtown streets. we had a city around cars and now around people to be more pedestrian friendly, more bike friendly. so we have rebuilt our entire downtown grid. we are also about to break ground on a streetcar system and none of that increased taxes. in fact, we paid cash. there was no debt created. our citizens are willing to invest in things but in you want to increase their taxes you have to have a pretty compelling argument and much, much tougher and if you have a funding opponent you're probably just wasting your time. >> on that -- you want to say something? >> yeah. two things. one is, you know, i tried to expand the list of infrastructure categories and i did an inadequate job. you know, the labor movement's been funding affordable housing

for a long time through our housing of the afl-cio housing investment trust. it's all in partnership in one form or another with the federal government. mayor bowser's point about this is spot on. in addition, you know, talk about parks, the park service, you know, recreational facilities part of the public goods portfolio. they have a lot to do with health as our colleague from oklahoma city said. and i think educational institutions are also part of this landscape. the financing challenge really is -- there's a couple of tricky things here. right now, there's been a big push by a small group of companies that would like to use this -- use the infrastructure challenge as a way to get a huge tax break from their offshore operations. that's what the repatriation

language says, means. of course, there are ways to be fair to the company that is create jobs in america. you know, who pay the full tax rate. and, you know, ways of working things out but we have to be very careful because there's one thing the election was a clear mandate for is public policy that did not incentivize american jobs offshore. there's ideas out there in the name of financial infrastructure are that are actually going to weaken the united states and subsidize offshoring and strikes me as something that nobody voted for. the challenge here is to -- for political leadership to support financing vehicles, both at the state and local level, but also at the federal level where there's more flexibility than there is at the state and local level. that can genuinely fund

long-term infrastructure investment at the scale we need. and in terms of the coming couple of years, this is -- this is a critical opportunity for real political leadership. and we will pay a terrible price if instead we push this further and further down the road. >> great. we are literally out of time but i'm not paying attention to that. who has a question or two? right here. right there. >> hi. my name is ben he vine with metro live network. i'm struck after this election the urban/rural divide in terms of candidate that is different folks are supporting. and i think we now have a situation where both the executive and legislative branches in congress have been elected by overwhelmingly rural and sort of post-industrial voters. i also look at the republican platform that looks to zero out

transit and talks about how urbanization is sort of social engineering and so i'm just curious to hear from the mayors both democrat and republican, how do you think about sort of the future of urbanization in light of the new administration? >> yeah. not too many people live in rural washington, d.c. >> zero. >> lucky. >> yeah. the rural/urban divide is real. it's been, you know, well chronicled and plays out in the state legislatures. you know, frequently. i'm not seeing a disconnect. i haven't seen a study saying rural voters aren't for rural infrastructure. water or roads or streets. think it's universal. there's reasons to be for and against things but i don't think the divide plays out on infrastructure. and i should probably add that, you know, the advent of the aon the mouse vehicle's probably going to have more to do with change in the built environment and infrastructure than anything

we have encountered in our lifetime. that's just around the corner, as well, and affects rural and urban development. >> over here. yeah. >> so one of the opportunities that -- >> just identify. >> sorry. my name is stephanie withnrdc. one of the opportunities that's presented with this infrastructure build is an opportunity to reimagine local empowerment in that state governments, right, we understand that the president-elect trump is not necessarily looking at the feds to be maybe the leader on some of these and may be an opportunity for state, local opportunities. and so, is there -- there are 36 governors who are going to be up in 2018 and so as mayor bowser was talking about just the relationships that are required. and damon talks about the opportunity that's created and i was just thinking about common grounds. how do we really have a conversation around the regional

investments that can happen, that really support kind of a small towns that are around, the bedroom communities around some of the larger cities, some of the aging cities? and then, where is the opportunity for innovation and the shared economy, especially as we think about some of the flexible dollars that we had through tiger that could create some spaces for us to do more? thanks. >> i'm not sure. >> yeah. >> well, i think one of the things that your question raises, your question raises a lot of things and i'm mindful we're out of time but one of the things your question raises is the role of state and local government in planning the built environment and then essentially helping to shape national policy that then support local and regional plans. this is something that we in the labor movement are very, very strongly believe is necessary. and is a way of, again, trying to sort of bridge some divides

that seem very particularly deep in washington and maybe less deep in -- i don't mean the washington that mayor bowser is -- >> thank you. >> federal washington. and more reflect the ways in which our people kind of live together and come together in the areas we live in. i would just suggest that in addition to this, we really have to think as we're doing this about the impact of infrastructure investment on our communities, that we have a lot of people in this country that have been left out of economic growth in the last 30 years. and a lot of different ways. and people in our inner cities, people in our rural areas, people in the de-industrialized parts of this country. it's a critical question whether or not infrastructure investment will reach them because if not then these communities cannot participate in the global