Washington, DC, March 9, 2017 – SIFMA today issued the following statement from Michael Decker, managing director and co-head of SIFMA’s Municipal Division, on the American Society of Civil Engineers 2017 Infrastructure Report Card:

“While showing some incremental progress towards improving our nation’s infrastructure since the 2013 ASCE Report Card, the 2017 ASCE Report Card clearly shows the desperate need for a strong commitment to infrastructure investment, which will help spur job creation and economic growth. SIFMA strongly advocates that the tax exemption for municipal bond interest remain intact, so that it may continue to help America’s cities and states boost their local economies through the construction of new projects such as roads, hospitals and schools. Meaningful public-private partnerships should also be a key component of any plan, as they will ease the burden on the cash-strapped federal government by leveraging our capital markets to create expanded financing options.”

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SIFMA is the voice of the U.S. securities industry. We represent the broker-dealers, banks and asset managers whose nearly 1 million employees provide access to the capital markets, raising over $2.5 trillion for businesses and municipalities in the U.S., serving clients with over $18.5 trillion in assets and managing more than $67 trillion in assets for individual and institutional clients including mutual funds and retirement plans. SIFMA, with offices in New York and Washington, D.C., is the U.S. regional member of the Global Financial Markets Association (GFMA). For more information, visit http://www.sifma.org.