The Washington cocktail of paralytic bureaucracy and polarized politics has stalled the rebuilding of America's decrepit infrastructure for over a decade. Now would be a good time to get off the dime. A million or more jobs — mostly outdoors — would be a great path for helping the economy recover from the COVID shutdown.   

Citing a national economic emergency, the Trump administration two weeks ago issued an executive order waiving environmental reviews for federal infrastructure projects. Reports this week suggest the Administration will propose a $1 trillion infrastructure plan. These proposals go too far and do too little, as Philip Howard writes in the Washington Examiner. Trying to abolish environmental review, for example, is a formula for continued partisan paralysis. 

The Trump proposals need to be repackaged into a coherent framework that allows officials to say Go:  

• To streamline permitting, Congress should create clear lines of authority to make decisions, as we recommend in our report "Two Years, Not Ten Years." The Trump administration earlier made progress by limiting the size of environmental reviews, but Congress needs to set clear guidelines of who decides what.  

• To get agreement on funding, Congress should create a trustworthy mechanism to set funding priorities and ground rules on how to avoid wasteful procurement. We recommend creating a National Infrastructure Board, as other countries have done.

To demonstrate its seriousness, the Trump administration should immediately release funding for large projects, such as the Gateway rail tunnel under the Hudson River, that are virtually "shovel-ready" and have been held up for political reasons.

Governing cannot be done by posturing and bluster. It requires real choices, which in turn requires an authority framework which both sides accept. Next week, we will launch our Campaign for Common Good aimed at simplifying government's operating system. Our goal is to re-empower officials and citizens alike to roll up their sleeves and start making things work again.