(San Francisco - July 6, 2008) Falling bridges. Broken levees. Bursting water and sewer lines. And who knows what other evils are on the brink of disaster in cities small and large.  Presidential hopefuls John McCain and Barack Obama need to focus on rebuilding this nation from the inside out. They need to stand behind a plan to allocate billions of dollars for a 21st Marshall Plan for America.  

That means taking some of the hundreds of millions allocated for Iraq and shifting them to rebuild the 'guts' of the nation's major cities.  That would infuse money into many of America's businesses and potentially generate hundreds of thousands of jobs.

What has brought this to home is traveling around northern California, specifically from San Francisco to Carmel on Route 1 and US 101.  While many of the small cities along the Pacific Coast still hold onto their charm, there is a feeling that many of the more populated cities are showing their age.  Roads are badly in need of repaving, and neighborhoods - inner city and suburban - are struggling to maintain old and new buildings, and simply to keep the cities clean.

Pick up the June 26th issue of 'The Economist' magazine and you'll read a truly humbling story a 2005 American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that the US needs more than $1.6 trillion - at least - to make basic improvements to some of the most obvious infrastructure problems.  Transportation experts, the article notes, say the U.S. needs some $225 billion to improve the nation's ports, airports and train systems. The article even slams the US saying that it "will have the infrastructure of a third-world country within decades."

So, while the presidential hopefuls spar over how long they'll keep troops in Iraq, they need to talk about what these troops would do once they come home.  What jobs would await these young men and women who may return to a city or town that has no jobs and is literally crumbling around them? 

McCain and Obama could truly would restore Americans' declining confidence about their future if they opened their eyes to the problems that lie right before their eyes as they travel coast to coast campaigning.  One of them will have the power to rebuild America's 'foundation' - literally.