Leadership Quote by Jerry Costello

Almost 70 percent is the kind of statistic politicians reach for when they want to turn “infrastructure” from a sleepy budget line into a national nerve. Jerry Costello isn’t just praising a river system; he’s reframing the upper Mississippi and Illinois waterways as an arterial network without which American abundance can’t circulate. The number does the heavy lifting: it implies that a barge channel in the Midwest isn’t a regional concern or a parochial earmark, but a chokepoint with consequences for trade balances, farm incomes, and grocery prices.

The intent is persuasion by inevitability. If that much export volume rides these waterways, then neglect becomes irresponsible, even unpatriotic. Costello’s subtext is aimed at two audiences at once. For coastal and urban lawmakers, it’s a translation device: care about locks and dredging because it touches national competitiveness. For local stakeholders, it’s a validation: your landscape is not flyover, it’s logistics.

Context matters because waterways are a perennial fight over who pays and who benefits. Rail and trucking interests, environmental concerns, and budget hawks all orbit the same question: should the federal government subsidize a system that disproportionately serves agricultural exporters? By choosing “U.S. ag exports” rather than “Midwestern shipments,” Costello quietly dodges the “special interest” label. He’s packaging a regional project as an export strategy, implying that the river is a trade policy tool as much as a geographic fact.