Despite an $800 billion economic recovery stimulus package targeted at shovel-ready jobs, gross domestic product growth remains slow and unemployment high. How strange, then, that Congress is considering additional funding for infrastructure in the form of a $10 billion infrastructure bank. The new entity, which would lend funds for transportation projects at low cost, has garnered an unusual array of bipartisan support.

President Obama proposed creation of such a bank in his 2012 budget, and legislation to that end is sponsored by Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and John Kerry, D-Mass.