Far West

Municipal infrastructure market participants believe that insufficient funding and the politicization of infrastructure are worse impediments to investments than corruption, earmark abuses, public policy instability, or poor creditworthiness of public authorities, according to a recent survey by KPMG LLP.

SAN FRANCISCO — Add ­Washington to the list of states worrying about ­liquidity.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration would like to make the Build America Bonds program permanent at a lower, so-called revenue-neutral subsidy rate, but the remainder of the proposed fiscal 2011 budget does not include any proposals to extend other stimulus programs due to expire at the end of the year.

WASHINGTON — President Obama in his fiscal 2011 budget yesterday proposed a $4 billion infrastructure bank to fund or finance worthwhile transportation projects.

WASHINGTON — The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is exploring whether to raise the fees it charges market participants, including for subscriptions to market data it collects.

WASHINGTON — President Obama is proposing $1.26 billion of spending authority for the Securities and Exchange Commission in fiscal 2011, a 12% jump over the $1.11 billion that the administration projects Congress will make available to the SEC for the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s fiscal 2011 budget, released yesterday, estimates a $1.267 trillion deficit, or 8.3% of gross domestic product, and proposes raising taxes on wealthy Americans that could boost demand for tax-exempt municipal bonds.

WASHINGTON — The tax-exemption for the interest paid on all municipal bonds will cost the federal government an estimated $38.7 billion in fiscal 2011, according to President Obama’s proposed budget for that fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.

SAN FRANCISCO — San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders said California’s second-most populous city has no need for Chapter 9 bankruptcy in an op-ed article published in the San Diego Union-Tribune Sunday.

WASHINGTON — Members of the Government Finance Officers Association’s governmental debt management committee on Friday unanimously agreed to propose a revised policy on direct-subsidy and tax-credit bonds that acknowledges Build America Bonds have emerged as a significant sector of the municipal market.