If there's an issue that symbolizes those complications, it's infrastructure. Roads, rail, ports, bridges, airports, broadband—who doesn't love infrastructure? Especially in a time of high unemployment, low interest rates, and regular reports about how our infrastructure is "crumbling." Yet, despite supporters ranging from Obama and the AFL-CIO to the Chamber of Commerce, there has been no infrastructure infusion in the past few years. Miller was partial to an infrastructure bank proposed by then-Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., that would have leveraged private funds, but it languished with only Democratic backing. Did Miller try to get some Republican cosponsors? "Yes. And we were never able to."
Since then, Republicans have reacted negatively to a new Obama proposal to cut corporate taxes and use a onetime "transition fee" on repatriated corporate earnings for infrastructure projects. Miller, meanwhile, is now interested in a House infrastructure bill introduced with bipartisan support. But business groups did not mount a full-court press on earlier measures—far from it—and there is no concerted campaign for this one as yet.
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