NEW PHILADELPHIA - When President Obama addresses a joint session of Congress next week to outline his proposal on jobs, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Avon, is hoping to hear some big plans.

“We need to be bold,” the senator said during a discussion Wednesday afternoon with The Times-Reporter’s editorial board.

“The budget deficit is a serious problem,” Brown continued. “We don’t cut our way to prosperity. We shouldn’t be cutting spending and laying off teachers and firefighters.”

The answer to spurring job growth and kick-starting the economy, according to Brown, is to invest in infrastructure.

“You look at some of the great moments in our history — (President Franklin) Roosevelt and rural electric, (President Dwight) Eisenhower and the interstate system and (President Abraham) Lincoln and the railroads — we did major infrastructure and it made us a very rich country.”

A problem, according to Brown, is the fact that the nation’s infrastructure has deteriorated over the last three decades.

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