Failing Infrastructure

We had a great investment in infrastructure during the Eisenhower era. The generation before that, we had an enormous investment in our infrastructure with the great works projects of the WPA and other types of projects of that era. 

We have skipped two generations of improving our infrastructure.  During the Reagan years, we should have again been investing in our infrastructure. So far, John McCain has not reject the idea that levees are pork. Not unlike Reagan, he’s much more likely to invest in weapons of death and destruction.

In 2005, the American Society of Civil Engineers issued a report card for America’s Infrastructure, which graded our nation’s infrastructure at a “D” and estimated that it would take $1.6 trillion invested over five years to bring conditions up to adequate levels. If we continue to ignore our levees, dams, bridges, tunnels, highways and mass transportation, it’s going to get worse.

The ASCE’s report doesn’t even begin to factor in the costs of expected natural events like global climate change.

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, it caused billions of dollars of damage and immeasurable human costs. We are all familiar with stories of levee failures in the affected area, but we rarely hear about the miles of roads and rail and dozens of bridges wiped out as well, which effectively cut some areas off from commerce. Many of those areas have yet to recover economically.

There will not be money available for investing in infrastructure, if John McCain’s policies, of borrowing for the endless war in Iraq and tax cuts for the wealthy, are implemented. McCain’s policies would add another $5.7 trillion to the national debt over the next decade. That isn’t fiscal conservatism, that’s what Bush has done over the last eight years. Not only can working families not afford it, future generations can’t afford it. And we can’t allow it to happen in this election.