And job growth go hand in hand and ive seen it in my own experience. And so i want to begin today with a statement of the obvious. That the United States faces a massive infrastructure deficit. And if this deficit is not addressed, it will stunt the recovery weve begun and cripple our economy. Now, i dont want to tell the people in the room how big this infrastructure deficit is. Youre moving goods around america all the time and the people that work in your businesses need efficient ways to get to work. But imagine how much harder that task is becoming. When as a nation we have 100,000 bridges old enough to collect medicare. When weve fallen 20 spots, according to the economic forum, 20 spots over the last 10 years when it comes to the quality of our infrastructure, putting us just behind barbados, a country that has just one airport. It becomes more difficult when we hear the American Society of Civil Engineers point out that without investment, deficiencies in our nations infrastruc