On this week’s Radically Pragmatic Podcast, PPI President Will Marshall and Senior Policy Fellow Crystal Swann sit down with Rep. Marilyn Strickland (WA-10), a former Mayor of Tacoma, and Sly James, former Mayor of Kansas City.
They discuss a new “metro-federalism” – the role of local leaders in effectively deploying the public resources provided by Congress in the American Rescue Plan Act, and how mayors will support the Biden Administration’s COVID-19 relief and recovery goals – often as Republican-controlled state legislatures are hostile to the new Democratic administration.
The leaders also discussed the American Jobs Plan, the Biden Administration’s next phase of the Build Back Better agenda, which will invest billions in traditional and human infrastructure so we can get every American – including women – back to work and back on track.
“We think about infrastructure as very traditionally roads, bridges, mass transit, sewers, et cetera. Now it includes broadband, now it includes affordable housing, and now it also includes what I call the “continuum of care-giving” – the way we care for our youngest and the way we care for our eldest, because when we talk about infrastructure as job creation, that is very male-dominated for a few reasons. But when we talk about the care-giving infrastructure, now we’re talking about more participation by women, and this is important because COVID has just disproportionately affected women’s participation in the workplace and on top of that women of color’s participation in the workplace. So we’re going to have a truly equitable and inclusive sustainable economic recovery, we have to look at the care-giving infrastructure as part of our holistic approach to how we invest in infrastructure,” said Rep. Marilyn Strickland on the podcast.
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