It's Time to Rebuild America(funding off budget viaDebt w/loan guarantees)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/12/AR2005121201263.html
It's Time to Rebuild America
A Plan for Spending More -- and Wisely -- on Our Decaying Infrastructure
By Felix G. Rohatyn and Warren Rudman
Tuesday, December 13, 2005; A27
<snip>The shortfall in investment is aggravated by the fact that most infrastructure money is given out by formulas that do not force all projects to be evaluated on consistent or rational terms. The solution to both issues could begin with a national investment corporation (NIC) that would be the window through which states and groups of states and localities would request financing or grants for all infrastructure projects requiring federal participation. It could, over time, replace the existing dedicated trust funds, as well as address new missions for America's public infrastructure programs, including renovation of public school buildings.
The NIC could use its financial power to bring about improvements in policy. Funds for new highways, airports or water projects would not be granted unless modern technology, appropriate user fees and other non-structural solutions had been brought to bear. Capital grants to individual school districts would be contingent on adopting management and human resource practices that would improve school performance.
<snip>The NIC should have the authority to issue bonds with maturities of up to 50 years to finance infrastructure projects. The bonds would be guaranteed by the federal government. Such long-lived bonds would align the financing of infrastructure investments with the benefits they create; the repayment of those bonds would allow the NIC to be self-financing. In Europe, the European Investment Bank finances infrastructure in a similar fashion; it has created a superb and efficient European infrastructure, including a high-speed rail network, which is an enormous asset.
<snip>There will no doubt be opposition to solving this problem. Advocates of "small government" will characteristically oppose government's performing its valid, historical role. Critics will accuse the NIC of being a "new bureaucracy" when, in fact, it might be the only practical approach to reform in the existing bureaucracies.
The coming year represents the last practical chance President Bush has to make a difference here. The nation's infrastructure crisis is no less serious for being silent. A federal role is needed to fix it, but that role must be reconceived, redrawn and refinanced. Success will improve our quality of life, our standard of living and our competitiveness. That will require government big enough and smart enough to be effective. That was the government of Lincoln and the transcontinental railroad, Jefferson and the Louisiana Purchase, and Eisenhower and the national highway program. From Seattle to New Orleans, events are now making it clear that we must return to that long-standing, bipartisan tradition.
Felix G. Rohatyn, an investment banker, and Warren Rudman, a former Republican senator from New Hampshire, chair the Commission on Public Infrastructure of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.