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Uniqueness: Competitveness: US declining
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Uniqueness: Competitveness: US decliningUS competitiveness decliningMoon, 2004 (Bruce, E., Professor at Lehigh University, The United States and Globalization: Struggles with Hegemony, July 23, 2004) Since the 1970s, when the United States began to experience a changing pattern of comparative advantage, the uniqueness of the American experience with globalization has eroded. In 1970, trade was a smaller share of GDP in the U.S. than in any other developed country. Indeed, by one measure it was barely half that in the second most insulated nation, Japan. Since then, trade has grown rapidly in the U.S., though the U.S. economy remains very much less exposed to foreign trade than most, with an export share about a third of the average European level.  The expansion in trade volume has been dramatic, but it is its unbalanced character that has most changed the political dynamic of policy discussions. Greater opportunities in the export realm certainly have benefitted high technology goods and financial service sectors, among others. However, the U.S. has lost competitiveness in basic manufacturing, especially in industries whose well-paying blue-collar jobs have provided much of the vaunted social mobility that remains central to America’s self-image, such as autos and steel. Moreover, with the widely publicized outsourcing of white collar jobs, the impact of declining competitiveness is no longer restricted to odd corners of the economy or to the margins of the political system. A $500 billion annual trade deficit in recent years is testimony to how wide-spread is the vulnerability of American firms and American workers to the foreign competition unleashed by globalization Competitiveness: Infrastructure KeyInfrastructure key to global competitivenessPuentes, 2011 (Robert, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution, Infrastructure Investment and U.S. Competitiveness, April 5, 2011, http://www.cfr.org/united-states/infrastructure-investment-us-competitiveness/p24585) Infrastructure is central to U.S. prosperity and global competitiveness. It matters because state-of-the-art transportation, telecommunications, and energy networks--the connective tissue of the nation--are critical to moving goods, ideas, and workers quickly and efficiently and providing a safe, secure, and competitive climate for business operations. But for too long, the nation's infrastructure policies have been kept separate and apart from the larger conversation about the U.S. economy. The benefits of infrastructure are frequently framed around short-term goals about job creation. While the focus on employment growth is certainly understandable, it is not the best way to target and deploy infrastructure dollars. And it means so-called "shovel ready projects" are all we can do while long-term investments in the smart grid, high-speed rail, and modern ports are stuck at the starting gate. We often fail to make infrastructure investments in an economy-enhancing way. This is why the proposal for a national infrastructure bank is so important. So in addition to the focus on job growth in the short term, we need to rebalance the American economy for the long term on several key elements: higher exports, to take advantage of rising global demand; low-carbon technology, to lead the clean-energy revolution; innovation, to spur growth through ideas and their deployment; and greater opportunity, to reverse the troubling, decades-long rise in inequality. Infrastructure is fundamental to each of those elements. HSR improves global tradeInvestment in US rail network, including crossing international borders, improves US ability to maintain global trade and improving competitiveness; federal involvement is keyZiolkowski 2012 (Michael F. , State University of New York, College at Brockport, The ties that bind: freight and passenger high-speed rail are interdependent Journal of Transport Geography 22 (2012) 292–294 www.elsevier.com/locate/jtrangeo) 
The United States rail network is part of the global supply chain No conversation about rail in the United States should exclude the nature of traffic that is carried today and predicted in the future. This paper argues that passenger and freight rail invest- ments are symbiotic. Supply chains transcend national boundaries so the United States rail network is but a part of the larger supply networks (Cowen 2010). Some planning of HSR suggests links to Canadian cities such as Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal may help to make HSR in the northwest and northeast USA viable.2 Yet, many transportation planning studies of American railroads have not followed the supply chain over international borders, where many shipments originate and are destined, in their infra- structure planning (NYSDOT, 2009; Cambridge Systematics, 2007; Wilbur Smith Associates, 2010). These plans are largely bounded by their authors’ reality and sphere of influence not by the paths, nodes, and borders of the global supply chain. The problem is illustrated by Figs. 1 and 2. Fig. 1shows a typical map from a rail plan focused on the perspective of the political jurisdiction of the transport planners and not on the reality of cross-border supply chains. Fig. 2 is a somewhat better reflection of the United States’ rail transportation network as nested in the global supply chain.3 Containers from Asia, for example, are inducted into the rail network on the west coast of North America and flow east. Increases in containerization volume have put great pressure on inland ports and have created bottlenecks, which impede com- merce (Rodrigue, 2008). The widening of the Panama Canal is pre- dicted to shift the induction of containers destined for the eastern seaboard of North America from west coast ports to east coast ports (Severson, 2010). It is anticipated that this will shift signifi- cant container traffic along new supply chains, and will open 2 For example, Vermont Agency of Transportation’s Boston – Montreal HSR Planning and Feasibility Study: www.aot.state.vt.us/Planning/BostonRail.htm. Although more could be done to show the intermodal nature of global supply chains in this figure it illustrates the point. potential new routes into the interior of North America, causing more constraints for both freight and passenger operators. ‘‘Thru- ports,’’ or inland intermodal facilities, may further develop (Rodri- gue, 2008). New Jersey could receive containers destined for Canada increasing the pressure on the existing rail infrastructure and key bottlenecks. For example, the International Bridge at the Niagara River (Fig. 3) built in 1873 carries more than ten percent of Canada’s trade and this route overlaps proposed HSR projects. Based upon secret United States State Department documents that were disclosed in the past year by Wikileaks (National Post, 2010), many rail links between Canada and the United States are considered critical to the minimal functioning of the US economy. Investments in rail infrastructure should focus on upgrading the weakest links in the system. Fig. 4 represents the precarious nature of the nation’s infrastructure. Much of the national railroad infrastructure was built in the first half of the last century and is maintained, but under- engineered, for modern standards and projected uses. As private property, it is lightly regulated, if at all; there is little that the gov- ernment can do to force regular maintenance or replacement of the railroad infrastructure. Presumably, corporations have factored the risk of failure into their operating plans. Upgrades in passenger rail transportation, however, are important for our economic future and national security. A greater and present risk to the economy is the deteriorated and outdated freight rail infrastructure linking glo- bal supply chains. A sound multimodal transportation framework is a necessary component—and prerequisite—for both strong national security and competitiveness. The government can help create a more level playing field with highway, water, and air transportation through the continued investment in our rail infrastructure. The current stimulus package is an excellent start, but it is a one-shot investment, albeit one designed to actually invest in tangible projects with multiplier effects, rather than to simply hand money to investment banks. Longer term, however, what is needed are dedicated and perma- nent streams of state and federal funding and an overhaul of rail regulations to ensure the upkeep of our infrastructure. 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