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It's Monday morning, and the government is open for business. In a last-minute agreement just an hour before the current budget extension was to expire Friday night, Democrats and Republicans avoided the nuclear option of a government shutdown... Read On 

Lobbyists for various modes of transportation -- roads, rail, aviation, even bike enthusiasts -- have done a good job of hanging together this year in advocating for infrastructure investment. Everyone from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the AFL-CIO is saying the same thing to policymakers: You can't afford not to invest in infrastructure, which, by the way, also will create jobs and grow the economy... Read On 

Whether or not the federal government shuts down this weekend, I have an announcement: U.S. metropolitan areas are open for business and striving innovatively to create jobs and transform the economy... Read On 

The agreement between Republicans and Democrats last Friday kept the federal government from shutting down for a short period, but it did not provide for longer-term fiscal stability in Washington nor did it do anything to tone down the increasingly shrill complaints from conservatives over the size of the national budget... Read On 

A Republican push to reject $461 million in federal railroad improvement grants for North Carolina appears to have collapsed. Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger said Saturday that he didn't think the project could be stopped. Berger's statement came a day after Sen. Bob Rucho, a Republican from Matthews, said GOP leaders have agreed they should accept the money... Read On 

Since the elections in November, newly elected Republican governors have been falling over themselves to return federal funding earmarked for high-speed rail. Their rationale is that once the rail project is built, the state will be the one bearing the operating cost while the trains lose money because no one is riding them... Read On 

Paul Krugman had an interesting discussion of ways to get out of the liquidity trap we're stuck in. He and Greg Mankiw agree that it's theoretically possible to escape it with either fiscal expansion (stimulus) or monetary policy (by the Federal Reserve Bank "credibly promising to be irresponsible" and create inflation)...  Read On 

The New America Foundation hosted a discussion on transportation, energy and climate policy today in Washington, D.C., in an effort to investigate the role of policy on influencing behavior change and possible policy solutions to the U.S.'s increasing demand on oil... Read On