ICYMI: Mayors in Florida and Alabama Praise the American Jobs Plan: 'Hope is on the Horizon'

Today, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor penned an op-ed in the Tampa Bay Times touting the American Jobs Plan, calling it "a bold, transformative approach to ensure that the United States is able to out-compete our global competitors and do right by our people."

In the op-ed, Mayor Castor writes: "Tampa is a microcosm of why the American Jobs Plan will make a difference. It will provide funding for critical infrastructure including transportation, water, affordable housing and resilience. In the process of building this new infrastructure, it will create new good-paying career opportunities for those who want to work hard, learn new skills and be part of a vibrant middle class. This will reduce systemic inequities in marginalized communities and promote equality of opportunity for all."

And earlier this week, Montgomery, AL Mayor Steven Reed and Birmingham, AL Mayor Randall Woodfin wrote an op-ed on AL.com saying that "hope is on the horizon thanks to the American Jobs Plan."

In the op-ed, the mayors write: "As our country and our communities continue their response to and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, hope is on the horizon thanks to the American Jobs Plan. The Biden Administration's American Rescue Act is helping with our nation's continued recovery, but it is not enough to just recover. We need to address systemic inequities in our economy to create a more prosperous future for all residents. The American Jobs Plan is the overhaul our cities need to position our country for long term success."

For a fact sheet on the need for action on infrastructure in Florida, click here. For the Alabama fact sheet, click here.

See below for both op-eds:

Tampa Bay Times: Column: Biden's American Jobs Plan will help Tampa build back better
[Mayor Jane Castor, 5/11/21]

From the transcontinental railroad and the interstate highway system to the internet, America's great public investments in infrastructure have risen in response to moments of great national challenge — from the Civil War to the Great Depression to the Cold War. These investments laid the groundwork for our nation's economic strength, built an unprecedented middle class and spurred a digital and innovation revolution that has changed our lives. These investments were all made at moments that demanded greatness and political will.

Following a year of a worldwide pandemic that cost more than 581,000 American lives, 22.5 million American job losses and the closure of over 200,000 American small businesses, we are at a similar inflection point. As we rebuild, our country faces a stark choice of whether we want to compete in the 21st century and be a world leader, or to limit our aspirations.

As mayor of one of the nation's fastest-growing cities, I hope that our leaders will choose the first path, and President Joe Biden's American Jobs Plan will take us there by helping us build back better in a way that brings the opportunity for prosperity to communities in every corner of the country.

Tampa is a microcosm of why the American Jobs Plan will make a difference. It will provide funding for critical infrastructure including transportation, water, affordable housing and resilience. In the process of building this new infrastructure, it will create new good-paying career opportunities for those who want to work hard, learn new skills and be part of a vibrant middle class. This will reduce systemic inequities in marginalized communities and promote equality of opportunity for all.

For decades, our growing transportation infrastructure needs have outpaced available revenue to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. The American Jobs Plan will provide vital funding to repave miles of streets in Tampa neighborhoods, fix aging bridges that are in need of reconstruction, and invest in vision zero improvements to make our streets safer for all users including bicyclists and pedestrians. The American Jobs Plan will double funding available for public transit, presenting a real opportunity for HART to make impactful changes and investments. We need to make it easier for people without cars to get to jobs, and we can do that while also reducing congestion and carbon emissions.

In addition to transportation, the American Jobs Plan will fund major water, wastewater and stormwater infrastructure projects. In Tampa, we passed the largest infrastructure project in our city's history — PIPES — that is going to rebuild our aging system of pipes, pumping stations, and treatment facilities. In 2016, Tampa began work on major stormwater infrastructure projects throughout the city to reduce flooding. And we are currently putting together a plan to end surface water discharges of treated water. Combined, these projects are estimated to cost over $4 billion. The American Jobs Plan will provide critical support that will help us meet our growing needs related to water.

The American Jobs Plan will invest in reenergizing our power infrastructure, including clean energy block grants that cities like Tampa will be able to use to mobilize private investment in sustainable technologies, to empower workers and to support environmental justice initiatives. It will help electrify our transportation system by funding hundreds of thousands of charging stations for electric vehicles, and put sunshine to work by installing American-made solar panels on American homes in American neighborhoods. And speaking of neighborhoods, the American Jobs Plan will ensure that everyone has access to broadband regardless of where they live.

The American Jobs Plan is a bold, transformative approach to ensure that the United States is able to out-compete our global competitors and do right by our people. Here in Tampa Bay, a region of champions, we like to win by being the best of the best. Whether it is our sports teams, our entrepreneurial ecosystem or our craft beer scene, we understand that being the best takes hard work, discipline, and investment.

We want our nation to win too, and ranking 13th globally in overall infrastructure, and being outspent by competitors on research and development, is not good enough. It is bad for business, it is bad for workers, and it is bad for national security. The greatest nation in the world must have the greatest infrastructure, the best jobs, and the most opportunity in the world.

The American Jobs Plan is an important step in making this happen in Tampa Bay, in Florida and across the country. It is time to rise to the occasion, put ideology aside, work together and get things done.

Jane Castor is the mayor of Tampa.

AL.com: Hope is on the horizon in Alabama thanks to the American Jobs Plan
[Steven L. Reed and Randall L. Woodfin, 5/8/21]

As our country and our communities continue their response to and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, hope is on the horizon thanks to the American Jobs Plan.

The Biden Administration's American Rescue Act is helping with our nation's continued recovery, but it is not enough to just recover. We need to address systemic inequities in our economy to create a more prosperous future for all residents. The American Jobs Plan is the overhaul our cities need to position our country for long term success.

President Joe Biden has put forth a plan that will ease the undue financial burdens facing many of our families, friends and neighbors. And while many are struggling to survive week to week amid financial uncertainties, the American Jobs Plan offers the solutions that will ensure we have the opportunity to thrive, long into the future.

When Alabama entered into a stay-at-home order on April 3, 2020, we could not fathom the devastating human, social and economic impacts the COVID-19 virus would have on our residents and communities.

Lives and livelihoods have been destroyed. Nearly 10% of Alabama's population has been infected with the virus and over 10,000 of our family members, friends, neighbors and coworkers have died as a result of Coronavirus.

The unemployment rate has almost doubled.

13 percent of adults in our state report not having enough food to eat.

21 percent of those renting their place to live report being behind on their rent payments.

Almost 40 percent of adults in Alabama report having difficultly covering normal household expenses.

Thousands of our young people have fallen behind academically from a lack of reliable internet.

Too many of our small businesses have closed completely or laid off employees.

These hardships were not caused by a lack of individual responsibility on the part of our residents; these were the tragic consequences of the pandemic.

But hope is here. The American Jobs Plan will complement our local recovery efforts by solidifying the path forward to help fully heal those who have suffered immense loss, layoffs, shuttered businesses or any measure of financial hardship due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Instead of fraught attempts to reignite the United States' economy through stagnant or outdated systems, the Jobs Plan brings bold ideas and decisive action. It calls for investing in innovation and infrastructure to position us for the workforce and jobs of tomorrow.

During the heights of the pandemic, we stood strong together in one of the greatest tests of our generation – a time that would have tested the mettle of any generation. Now, President Biden's plan seeks to unify and mobilize our nation to meet the challenges ahead.

We will overhaul our roads, bridges, highways, airports, rail lines and ports to modernize the corridors of commerce throughout our country. In doing so, we will get Americans moving again.

We will see the expansion of high-speed broadband access for all Alabamians and critical upgrades to information systems at core institutions like Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base and Red Stone Arsenal, both of which play a major role in Alabama's economy.

We will be makers and creators again as President Biden's Jobs plan stands alongside his Made in America Plan to foster growth and job creation at home. It will inspire an entirely new generation of entrepreneurs while encouraging proven innovators in our communities, like Chaymeriyia Moncrief. Chaymeriyia is a young Black woman from Montgomery whose vision and courage led to the creation of Tesix Wireless. Today, Tesix Wireless is valued at $10 million. Or like Selena Rodgers Dickerson, a Black woman from Birmingham who created her own engineering services firm in 2010 after getting laid off from her job during the nation's worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Selena's firm, SARCOR, built a niche working in civil engineering and inspection services primarily in the government/transportation space

Their stories shouldn't be the exception but the rule. The American Jobs Plan – along with the Made in America Plan – will empower those with actionable ideas who live and work among us to stay in our communities and keep living and working with us.

These are just some of the many ways the American Jobs Plan will help our local economies in Alabama, as well as those throughout the nation, rebound together.

Challenges create opportunity, and tragedy begets triumph. We will overcome these challenging times to realize a more prosperous and equitable future for all.

Steven L. Reed is mayor of Montgomery and Randall L. Woodfin is mayor of Birmingham.