Vice President Joe Biden said investing in the nation’s highways and bridges is a national security issue and Congress should quickly approve spending for new projects.

Biden said Monday the government now spends less than 1 percent of the gross domestic product on infrastructure, down from about 4 percent. Businesses won’t invest if they don’t know they can get raw materials to the factory floor, he said.

“We rank 28th in the world in terms of a modern infrastructure,” Biden said at an event sponsored by Bloomberg in Washington. “There is absolutely no rationale, no reasonable argument against the need for these investments.”