Arkansas' piece of the $1 trillion federal infrastructure bill is something more than $4 billion in funding for the next five years.
That's a huge infusion of money for highways, bridge repairs and replacements, broadband access and water system improvements, not to mention the jobs and the economic boost that will come with it.
And there will be more to come in what the White House is calling a once-in-a-generation investment in the nation's infrastructure.
President Joe Biden turned the tap on the money that will flow to Arkansas and all of the rest of the country on Monday, when he signed the long-stalled Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
Democrats in the U.S. Senate, with the help of 19 Republican senators who bucked their GOP colleagues' opposition to the measure, actually passed the law months ago.
Not until recently did the U.S. House of Representatives do the same. Again, passage came on the strength of votes from all but six Democrats with support from 11 Republican House members.
If you're wondering whether any member of Arkansas' congressional delegation was among the Republicans who backed the infrastructure bill in the Senate or the House, don't bother.
Six out of six of the Republicans representing Arkansas (both of the state's U.S. senators and all four House members) opposed the legislation that will pipe that $4 billion, most of it for highways, to Arkansas.
All of these men -- Sens. John Boozman and Tom Cotton and Reps. Rick Crawford, French Hill, Steve Womack and Bruce Westerman -- have historically been for infrastructure improvements. They nevertheless opposed this bill. Rather, they opposed enough of the proposed spending to try to scuttle even those elements with which they agreed.
Thanks to the votes of senators and representatives from other states, Arkansas will still benefit from this historic program.
You've got to wonder if the state's take would have been greater, if any of the Arkansas delegation had helped pass the legislation.
Nevertheless, Arkansas will get billions, every dollar of which is welcome.
Of the money the White House has said will come to Arkansas in the first five years, $3.6 billion is earmarked for highways.
Other elements of the package include $528 million for clean water, $278 million for bridges, $246 million for public transportation, $117 million for airports, $100 million for broadband, $54 million for electric vehicle charging, $23 million for wildfire protection and $16 million for cyberattack protection.
The numbers come from the White House and are based on formula funding.
These are projections for the first five years of a 10-year program coordinated by a newly created Infrastructure Implementation Task Force.
It is a massive program chock-full of potential answers to problems, many long-standing, all across the country.
Arkansas, for example, has spent decades trying to find enough revenue to address this state's highway needs. The state has made progress, with voters agreeing to tax themselves to fund certain programs; but the money raised has never come close to fulfilling the needs identified by state highway officials.
That list of needs includes highway and bridge projects all across the state, many of which have just had to be pushed off into the future for lack of funds.
Sadly, school children in this state have, in some counties, actually had to get off their school buses and walk across structurally suspect bridges to let the empty school bus cross more safely.
Those bridges get fixed or replaced as local governments can afford to make the improvements. Clearly, failing "infrastructure" affects even the youngest among us.
There are many such illustrations, felt by virtually everyone in the country and perhaps the reason why this bill is polling so favorably among voters.
The pandemic that sent many Americans home both to work remotely and to stand in for their children's teachers made all too obvious the need to expand broadband.
Getting internet access to every hill and valley and to large and small cities and towns is as critical today as rural electrification was to a much earlier generation.
Again, Arkansas has been chipping away at extending those services but this infusion of funding will get them to more people more quickly. It is indeed one of the transformative changes promised in this bill.
There will be significant fixes, too, to water systems and more in the years to come, every bit of it heralded by the communities these projects will serve.
So, separate the promise that the bill brings from the ragged politics that preceded its passage.
Thank the Biden administration for its dogged pursuit of the legislation and for those bipartisan Senate and House members -- absent any Arkansans -- who made it happen.