The one trillion dollars in President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better infrastructure package was so big the Washington bureaucracy couldn’t tell states and even its own federal agencies how the money would be spent.
That infrastructure repair bill passed by Congress in 2022 authorized more than $2.2 trillion dollars in relief. A million one dollar bills laid end-to-end stretches 96.9 miles and it is 75.6 miles from Clarksdale to the Peabody in Memphis. A line of one billion dollar bills would go around the Earth almost four times. One trillion ($1,000,000,000,000) one dollar bills laid end-to-end measures 96,906,656 miles. This would exceed the distance from the Earth to the Sun.
That’s a lot of money!
The bill allocated an even $1 trillion to be spent on roads and bridges across the nation. Mississippi got $4.46 billion overall.
As this newspaper has said before, we think it is time the federal government finalizes Interstate 69. The Delta is the only part of the state that does not have an interstate highway and it shows.
Congressman Bennie Thompson was in Clarksdale this week to address the opening of the IRS Offices on the third floor of the Federal Building. That project will bring 50 jobs to the area. And your Clarksdale Press Register thanks Congressman Thompson for his help in funding this project.
We now urge Congressman Thompson to look ahead and see how construction of I-69 would bring untold commerce and jobs to Mississippi, the Delta and Clarksdale. I-69 runs through the center of the Second Congressional District.
Building highways is a simple funding issue. We have engineering plans for highways and all it would take is allocating federal dollars to get this major and important highway projects started.
Congressman Thompson carries a lot of weight in Washington and we feel he could get those highway projects started with the stroke of a pen.
Our elected officials in Washington need to realize an interstate down the western portion of the state would transform one of the most deserving parts of the country. Crops could get to ports, industry would have immediate truck access to the region and the rest of the nation and commercial development would follow that roadway.
We urge Senator Roger Wicker, Senator Cindy-Hyde Smith and probably most importantly the Delta’s Democratic Congressman Bennie Thompson to push for the completion of Interstate 69.
This level of federal dollars for infrastructure will not come around again. If we don’t get I-69 now, it won’t happen.
