U.S. Infrastructure is Crumbling

[ck4829]

Crowded schools, traffic-choked roads and transit cutbacks are eroding the quality of American life, according to an analysis by civil engineers that gave the nation’s infrastructure an overall grade of D.

A report by the American Society of Civil Engineers released Wednesday assessed the four-year trend in the condition of 12 categories of infrastructure.

The overall grade slipped from the D+ given in 2001 and 2003. Overall conditions remained the same for bridges, dams and solid waste, the group said, and worsened in roads, drinking water, transit, wastewater, hazard waste, navigable waterways and energy.

"The condition of our nation’s roads, bridges, drinking water systems and other public works have shown little to no improvement since they were graded an overall D+ in 2001, with some areas sliding toward failing grades," the society said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7137552/

[lebkuchen]

1. D- for drinking water

What are ya'll drinking? Evian?

[MissMarple]

2. Colorado's Tabor restrictions are strangling our state.

I'm sure some people are quite happy about that, but some in the business community are beginning to get concerned. Oh, dear, less government could actually harm the business climate. Who would have thought?

http://www.gazette.com/display.php?id=1306270&secid=1

"Colorado is facing a $234 million budget shortfall for the coming 2005-06 fiscal year and a $188.1 million shortfall for the year after that.

If nothing is done, lawmakers are talking about closing some colleges and universities, letting roads fall into disrepair and scaling back health care programs for the needy.

But Republican leaders, including Gov. Bill Owens, say HB1194 is flawed because it lets government keep too much money over too long a period. Voters won’t go for it, they argue.
....

Those negotiations turned into political theater Tuesday during an eleventh-hour meeting between Owens and legislative leaders. Both sides spent more than an hour trading jabs for a room full of reporters and reciting rehearsed sound bites for television cameras."

[EVDebs]

4. Oh just lovely, CA's gov wants to copy CO's TABOR budgeting

and I'm seeing other states are trying to copy it also. Basically take any yr as a starting point and then allow growth in the budget only by population growth and inflation factors. You end up with pretty much a 'per capita' budgeting process that favors big globalized multinational corporations in the long run, for just the reasons you are pointing out.

O & M on infrastructure is sacrificed also. Free market failure (yes, it can happen) combined with corruption inherent in the system leads to 'every man for himself'. This is the essence of Ayn Rand and the neocon's economic system.

We're learning to call them "Red Ink Republicans" on the national level and corporatist shills at the local level.

[Igel]

3. That's what you get when you don't factor in depreciation.

Distributed government in a short-sighted democracy can't put away money for its future needs, even when they're predicted.

Parents view any extra money in the government's account as money for schools; the old want it for retirement; the poor want it for income redistribution; the sick or uninsured want it for health care; government workers want it in their salaries; business wants it for tax breaks. I have yet to hear of a group that says anything remotely like "Let's keep that $1.9 billion in the bank for infrastructure needs." Name a group, they have a urgent social need for the money, something certainly for the "common good".

Even this report: if billions of dollars go for rebuilding infrastructure, guess who gets a chunk of it ... civil engineers.

Sometimes self-interest and the common good coincide.

[EVDebs]

5. But Operation and Maintence is supposed to be 'built into' contracts

when these infrastructure projects were built in the first place. O and M is a part of every annual budget...is is getting cut to spend elsewhere ... and why ?

[MissMarple]

6. Haven't you heard, government is evil, and I can spend my money better

than any government. Pretty soon I'll need my extra few dollars to pay for a private security firm because the police are just way too overextended from fiscal cutbacks. And roads, streets, water and power, :shrug:. Not to mention frills like schools, social services and uncontaminated food.

[Igel]

7. Politicians are short-term creatures.

Maintenance on older projects gets more and more expensive; and nobody wants to cough up the cash or issue bonds unless there's political gain in it--usually if a bridge is about to collapse, that's enough (they can blame the previous administration). Otherwise, it's boring, and doesn't win elections.


Even then, you're right: nobody wants to fully fund maintenance. Again, it's boring, and it eats up budgets. No elected official wants to say "Vote for me. I have a record of allocating sufficient funds to maintain what my predecessors built."

It's going to get worse, and may never get much better. They'll just fix things 28 seconds before they catastrophically fail.

[lonestarnot]

8. AZ had us boiling water last month! n/t