Infrastructure and Economic Growth in Central Florida with Congressman Darren Soto

Glenn: Hey, everybody. It’s your hospitality. Friend Glenn reporting from London. Conn. I got Congressman Darren Soto with me. So great to see you. Let’s talk a little bit about what’s going on with infrastructure and the economy. I love that we’re putting money into smart investments like infrastructure. How are you seeing it?

Congressman Soto: Well, in Central Florida we’re growing by leaps and bounds, including in tourism. And so we have a lot of needs, and we’re finally getting a lot of the funding in to help out with expanding I-4, which this year had the worst traffic in the nation. So we’re excited at $3.5 billion, the full amount on the project. We have 300 million at the airport to expand travel for both tourism, for Central Floridians, to improve quality of life, improve the business lifeline that the airport is. And then we’re also getting employees to work through expanding SunRail and and then intercity travel. We just connected Miami to Orlando, and now we’re going to be heading to Tampa next. So a lot of synergy there with Central Florida and Florida tourism.

Glenn: What I love about like Brightline, for example, is a great partnership between public and private companies that I think is a real win win type of scenario.

Congressman Soto: Well, we know that people have asked us to do more public private partnerships, help make sure that private sector businesses are being more competitive. And so we wouldn’t have been able to do this expansion without this expansion of both intercity rail with Brightline and Disney Universal SeaWorld helping out. But it’s also local government, state governments, and of course, we and the feds will handle half of the $6 billion project. But what it’s going to mean is that hundreds of thousands of Central Floridians can get to work easier. It’ll also mean hotels will have to work on trams and shuttles and getting employees there. But it also makes sure that we’re low in cost for employees. And and that’s good for employers to have happy employees around here who could get to work quicker. How do you.

Glenn: Think that sets against the overall economy, particularly here in your district in Central Florida? Well, we have.

Congressman Soto: A lot of growth, so we’re always unique in that way. Housing is one of the big challenges because we have so many folks moving in. But we’ve seen continued increases this year from last year in overall tourism, overall travel through the Orlando International Airport. So we’re we’re rocking steady with with with decent growth. And obviously we’re looking at the the overall economic outlook. We saw finally inflation probably this month will as of the July report will probably go below 3%. Probably 2.9, 2.8. That that’ll help spur the fed to lower interest rates. We’re here at lending com obviously folks are focusing very closely on that. So I do think we could see 1 to 2 rate reductions, which will be great for increased desire to start new businesses or expand businesses. And of course, the lending and access to capital that comes along with it.

Glenn: Excellent. Thank you so much. I appreciate all that you’re doing. And remember, our infrastructure is important to the overall health of our economy and your business. I’m Glenn Housman. That’s Congressman Soto. Thanks for watching. See you later.