A Democratic Agenda

People say Democrats do a lot of criticizing but don't offer programs of their own, and there's some truth to this. My suggestion, therefore, is that when we offer a criticism we follow it up, if possible, with our own recommendation. And a propos of that, I ran across a suggestion that would be an excellent addition to our agenda, in an article Dec. 25 in The Denver Post by Neal Peirce: "a national infrastructure plan not only robust enough to make a real impact, but based on clear, performance-based targets that give us confidence that the billions we invest will be well spent and not frittered away for political expediency.
"The new idea comes from Felix Rohatyn, a New York investment banker with decades of experience in government finance reform, and Warren Rudman, former Republican senator from New Hampshire and a founder of the Concord Coalition....
"They are co-chairing a newly-formed Commission on Public Infrastructure that has an ingenious idea for a federally funded National Investment Corporation (NIC). Through it, states and local governments could obtain federal financing for a broad array of potential projects, in ground and air transportation, water systems and school buildings."