After three decades of privatization with its massive divestment from our public infrastructure and services, we are finally taking stock. Our levies are broken, drinking water poisoned. We have collapsed bridges and power outages. Making vital decisions based on ideology instead of evidence has had real costs.

With astounding...

As Americans struggle to make ends meet, affirm basic democratic and constitutional values, and work toward a brighter tomorrow, a small but influential group of reporters and pundits, Republican Congressional leaders and businessmen are turning to fear and smear campaigns to grab attention and subvert a durable equitable recovery.

Elected Officials in Texas, California, North Carolina, Illinois, Virginia, and Massachusetts need to raise the decency bar when awarding P3 contracts. Balfour Beatty and LAZ Parking run public works, such as:

1. The Alameda Corridor (CA)
2. Metro Goldline (CA)
3. Chicago Parking Meters (IL)
4. North Antelope Rochelle Mine (WY)
5. Alfred Cunningham Bridge...

Our elected officials, TARP bankers in tow, are painting public-private partnerships (P3s) with the warm glow of progressivism -- a win-win for government, labor, business and the people.

At the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, President Obama conjured the Great Emancipator, reminding us that Lincoln helped lay down the...

1. CALIFORNIA PROVIDES CRITICAL SERVICES:
The recent State budget is deeply flawed. It relies upon questionable income assumptions and possibly illegal raids of county and city funds. But, to our thinking, the worst problem is that California has balanced its budget on the backs of those least able to...

If you're looking for a good deal on public assets, Allen & Overy LLP, a leading international law firm, has a product for you. It's called the "PPPs & Municipal Home Rule" tool. Don't be turned off by the long-winded name. Allen & Overy is saving investors a lot of...

At this year's National Governors Association (NGA) meeting, Governor Ed Rendell's tenure as Chair fittingly came to a close with a plenary session on infrastructure financing. For the last year, Rendell has highlighted the issue through a timely NGA initiative, "Strengthening Our Infrastructure for a Sustainable Future."

Rendell has...

In Michigan last week, President Obama took full ownership of the economy, Bush legacy assets and all. This couldn't be more welcome as we move into the second wave of recovery.

More than a year ago, candidate-Obama had stood on a General Motors shop floor in Janesville, Wisconsin and delivered...

On the campaign trail, President Obama made a well-received promise to put more value on American labor when negotiating trade deals. He spoke of revisiting trade agreements like NAFTA and the WTO to make sure that we didn't continue to erode American wages in the name of free trade. In...

With the start of Haute Couture Week in Paris, luxury is already on the ropes. Christian Lacroix is going under. Meanwhile, Prada and Armani are offering their brands to cell phone makers, televisions and cars.

Still, at the recent Financial Times Luxury Summit in Monaco, Bernard Arnault, chairman of...

Before being nominated for Secretary of Energy, Nobel Prize-winner Steven Chu helped draft the Council on Competitiveness's 'A 100-Day Energy Action Plan for the 44th President of the United States.' The Council is a group of CEOs, university presidents and labor leaders devoted to America's prosperity. The Action Plan proposed...

A couple days ago, I posted something here on the Howard Dean/Stephen Goldsmith joint effort to promote excellent P3s. I received many follow-ups off-line wondering whether, given the deservedly controversial character of P3s, they were a good idea for America.

Where did P3s come from? Are they just...

Former Governor Howard Dean and Former Mayor Stephen Goldsmith, both now affiliated with the international law firm McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP, just launched the Council of Project Finance Advisors.

The idea is to promote excellent partnerships between government and the private sector in order to answer President Obama's call...

As politicians and pundits continue to pillor Wall Street and the Beltway for bad investments, on this week's Meet the Press, David Gregory welcomed a new group of investment advisers, "Building America's Future". Governors Rendell and Schwarzenegger along with Mayor Bloomberg formed this subnational coalition dedicated to reinvestment in American...

When the New York Times reporter asked President Barack Obama whether he was a socialist, this certainly wasn't a productive way to foster healthy debate over the appropriate role of the state in our crisis-ridden free market economy. One would have to be tone deaf to think that our President...

On February 26th, President Obama issued his first budget, 'A New Era of Responsibility: Renewing America's Future'. It proposed the creation of a National Infrastructure Bank, something promised in an important campaign speech delivered at the General Motors plant in Janesville, Wisconsin almost a year ago. The Bank idea then...

We use our companies as foreign policy organs. The recent report, Hard Lessons, by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction is a sobering reminder that we do not always do this so well. The election of President Obama is an opportunity to bring a fresh breath of accountability to...

Yesterday, President Obama received his first Economic Intelligence Brief from the Central Intelligence Agency. This is a welcome milestone along the road back to responsible leadership. Just as President Obama inherited the Iraq War with all its national security threats, he too inherits a threat-ridden legacy of global economic insecurity....

Secretary of State Clinton controversially just called for a redirection of US human rights policy toward China--We are now going to be honest. This caused great outrage and worry.

Clinton argued that our human rights goals are actually hindered by our antagonistic stance. In other words, the more we complain,...

By gutting vital aid to states and under-capitalizing infrastructure spending, many more of our states may soon look like debt-distressed California. What happens then when we combine this with more TARP money and the set of private investment subsidies in the Reinvestment Act that we sometimes call tax cuts. Despite...