The United States would be less in want of public infrastructure improvements if we stopped wasting so much money studying them and got busy actually building them.
CNN reports that “the fabric of America is crumbling,” quoting an American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) report giving a D+ grade to the country’s roads, bridges, airports, schools, and other public works. Melodramatic? The World Economic Forum now ranks the U.S. 13th in the world in maintaining adequate infrastructure, even below the United Arab Emirates and Singapore.
That concern prompted President Trump to prioritize such investments in his inaugural address: “We will build new roads, and highways, and bridges, and airports, and tunnels, and railways all across our wonderful nation,” he said.
ASCE estimates a $4.6 trillion need for maintenance and improvements over the next decade. Congress and the President agreed to spend almost half that on a new federal plan – in addition to state, local, and private projects. Almost 80 percent of public infrastructure projects are funded by state and local governments, so $2 trillion more federal dollars would have an overwhelming impact.
Critics often point out that of almost $80 billion in federal, state, and local fuel tax revenues (originally dedicated to roads and bridges), over 20 percent is now syphoned off for mass transit, landscaping, noise barriers, bike trails, and other uses. States also collect $38 billion in vehicle taxes, but spend 34 percent of it on non-highway uses. But that is not all the money being spent on purposes other than infrastructure. Indeed, we spend more on studies than on construction.
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