Interviews for Resistance

Interviews for Resistance


An equitable infrastructure plan, with Bishop Dwayne Royster

June 01, 2017

Donald Trump's plans to "Make America Great Again" included promises of massive infrastructure spending, but it turns out he's mostly interested in privatizing what's left of the American public sector to make his cronies rich at the expense of everyone else. But infrastructure spending is desperately needed, so the "Millions of Jobs" coalition is coming together with a big, positive, public-oriented vision for infrastructure that goes beyond roads and bridges to the infrastructure of care. Bishop Dwayne Royster of the PICO Network is part of that coalition, and he explains:

I think Trump and others are trying to make deals and they are trying to maximize the profits for their friends and the other billionaires that they care about. But, when we think about infrastructure I think we have to think about the whole in terms of how we are building out our country, our nation, how we are building out future generations. Any infrastructure project is a project that you are looking at that has to last several decades. What better investment in infrastructure could there be than building up solar energy, building out education priorities for our kids, making sure that we are creating job opportunities for people that have been locked out of those opportunities by creating good-paying middle-class jobs? I think that is infrastructure, as well.

I think infrastructure is much bigger than just looking at roads and bridges. Of course, they are incredibly important, don’t get me wrong on that. But, it is important that we are looking at the infrastructure of a nation which also includes the human resources that we have, as well.