Source: Dr. Mike Walden, NCSU COLLEGE OF AG & LIFE SCIENCES, 7/8/16

Part of any political campaign for the candidates is highlighting differences between themselves and other candidates, but NC State University economist Mike Walden found one thing all of the 2016 presidential candidates favor.

“It’s the need they argue for more infrastructure spending. All the current presidential candidates say they want to spend more money on upgrading our roads, our bridges, our courts, our airports, water and sewer facilities and the power grid. And they’re actually in line with what experts are saying about this.

“Experts say we are perhaps in the hole of trillions of dollars in terms of needing money to go into infrastructure, both new development as well as maintenance. And, they say, the payoffs are very high. In fact, if you look at this as an investment return, some estimates say that every dollar you put into infrastructure pays you back 20 percent each year.

“Another argument for going ahead with this is that if the federal government does so and has to borrow money, interest rates are obviously very, very low, and some say that actually the investment would pay for itself — you could pay off the interest itself — from the higher economic growth that you get from infrastructure investment.

“Now if, however, you don’t want to count on that, there are some obvious issues with how the federal government is going to pay for this — what kind of taxes, perhaps, would be increased? And some say, well, the gas tax, which has gone down about 40 percent in inflation just in terms of 25 years, pump that up a little bit, maybe some additional fees on airline tickets and power bills. So, that will be an issue if this does get to a point where the next president wants to push forward, but this is interestingly something you can find on all of their websites, they all agree: Make more money spending it on infrastructure.”