In regards to a Ohio Senate vote on the infrastructure portion of the president’s American Jobs Act, 21 mayors from across the state have signed a letter this week urging Republicans in Congress to pass the bill.
“With Ohio’s unemployment at 9.1 percent, we see firsthand the foreclosed homes, the shuttered businesses and the crumbling infrastructure in our communities,” states the letter.
Of the investments for highway and transit modernization projects, the jobs act would make immediate investments of more than $1.05 billion dollars that would create 13,700 jobs in Ohio.
“Small-town cities and communities like Athens have been hit the hardest by Ohio’s stagnant economy, the nation’s stagnant economy,” said Andrew Zucker, Deputy Communications Director for the Ohio Democratic Party.
These mayors represent various small communities from across the state, struggling with strapped city budgets, unemployment, foreclosure, and families living in poverty or who cannot make ends meet, according to the a Democratic Party news release. The individual components of the President’s American Job’s Act could help keep the smaller communities functioning.
Nationally, the plan invests $15 billion toward putting construction workers back to work, rehabilitating and refurbishing hundreds of thousands of vacant and foreclosed homes and businesses. Ohio could receive more than $577,000,000 to revitalize local communities in addition to money that would be available through a competitive application process.
