Michael Lind, policy director of economic growth programs for the New America Foundation, said the idea of an infrastructure bank is not new. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently unearthed a document from 1983 calling for such an idea for alleviating congestion at West Coast ports and Midwestern railroad hubs. Those bottlenecks remain today.

"If there are a relatively small number of mega-projects that everybody agrees need to be built, why not just do it?" Lind asked. "Wouldn't it make sense to do that as a grant, and the American people are taxed to pay for it? ...