Posted on 01/07/2025 5:01:13 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Signs that we were once a truly great nation are all around us. Previous generations of Americans handed us the keys to the most magnificent domestic infrastructure that the world had ever seen, but now it is literally falling apart all around us. Thousands of bridges are structurally deficient and there have already been some very high profile collapses. Hundreds of thousands of miles of highways and roads in the United States are in very poor shape. Aging sewer systems are leaking raw sewage all over the place, and children are being slowly poisoned by lead pipes that desperately need to be replaced. The power grid is hopelessly overloaded and is extremely vulnerable. Meanwhile, our ports, our dams, our subway systems, our bus terminals and our airports are crumbling right in front of our eyes. The truth is that our nation’s infrastructure says a lot about who we are.
So what does America’s crumbling infrastructure say about us? Sadly, it says that we are a rusting, crumbling, decaying leftover from a better, more prosperous time.
When Joe Biden took office in 2021, his administration told us that “investment in U.S. infrastructure as a share of GDP has fallen by more than 40 percent since the 1960s”…
Public investment in U.S. infrastructure as a share of GDP has fallen by more than 40 percent since the 1960s. The World Economic Forum now ranks the United States 13th when it comes to the overall quality of infrastructure.
So Congress passed a bill that gave the Biden administration more than $100,000,000,000 to spend on fixing our infrastructure.
Honestly, I have no idea what they did with all that money.
In 2021, the official White House website was reporting that 45,000 bridges and 20 percent of our roads were in poor condition…
More than 45,000 U.S. bridges and 1 in 5 miles of roads are in poor condition, per the American Society of Civil Engineers. In 2007, the I-35 bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis collapsed during rush hour, killing 13 and injuring 121.
Well, fast forward a few years later and the Department of Transportation is still telling us that “over 40,000 bridges” are in poor condition…
The Department of Transportation considers 6.8% of the over 600,000 bridges it tracks and rates to be in “poor” condition. That doesn’t sound too bad on a percentage basis, but it’s over 40,000 bridges in total.
And it appears that the condition of our roads has actually gotten worse in many states.
For example, Consumer Reports says that almost half of all urban roads in the state of California are not currently in acceptable condition…
Despite an enormous yearly disbursement for highways that tops $21 billion, the Golden State manages to keep just a little more than half their urban roads in acceptable condition. However, this is an outsized job since, in addition to 840 miles of coastline, California boasts more miles of urban roads than any other state and has the second-highest mileage of rural roads in the country.
Data from the National Highway Administration shows California’s roads are the most traveled in the U.S., so it makes sense that the state also has the second-highest number of motor vehicle-related fatalities in the country.
Back in 2021, the Biden administration also made a big deal out of the fact that millions of Americans were getting their tap water through lead pipes…
Millions still get water from lead pipes, despite the fact that exposure to lead has irreversible health effects; in 2015, a state of emergency was declared in Flint, Michigan as citizens learned that their water supply contained toxic levels of lead.
So why didn’t the Biden administration fix this problem?
An article that was published late last year revealed that the EPA is estimating that “more than 9 million service lines” are still made out of lead…
The EPA estimates that more than 9 million service lines are made of lead, a neurotoxin that can cause nervous system damage, learning disabilities and other health problems, especially in children. If lead pipes corrode, as in the infamous case of Flint, Michigan, they can poison drinking water.
While no amount of lead exposure is safe, the federal rule now requires utilities to notify the public and improve corrosion treatment if lead in their water exceeds 10 parts per billion. Some homes in Syracuse, New York, recently tested at 70 parts per billion.
Our politicians are constantly telling us that they just don’t have enough money to get everything done.
Personally, I would really love to see exactly what the Biden administration spent more than 100 billion dollars of infrastructure money on.
Have you traveled through any of our airports lately?
Compared to other industrialized nations, they are a complete and utter joke.
Why can’t we have beautiful airports, modern subway systems, functional roads and bridges, and safe water coming out of our taps?
More tax revenue is collected in America than anywhere else in the world, and so we certainly deserve the best infrastructure.
When I bring up the topic of taxes, most people immediately think of the federal income tax. But the truth is that there are literally dozens of different taxes that they use to extract wealth out of us…
When you take all forms of taxation into account, some Americans actually end up handing over more than 50 percent of their incomes each year.
So our politicians have no excuse for not fixing our infrastructure.
But even though they extract money from us in dozens of different ways, our infrastructure crisis just seems to keep getting worse.
In some areas of the country, roads that were once paved have actually been transformed into gravel roads because they are cheaper to maintain.
Our crumbling infrastructure is a perfect metaphor for our crumbling society as a whole, and it is time for the American people to start demanding better from all levels of government.
* * *
Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com
If you are curious, here is the sign translation:
Looks like it is after 5 PM, time for a drink. I'll get tight, maybe touch some young girl's breasts, Jill will try to stop me, and the young girl's father will threaten to cut off my left hand. Whaddya gonna do?
Bkmk
This problem is one of the first things that needs to be addressed by DOGE.
Let me give you some examples. I was once hired by a State of Washington Correction Center to help them with some equipment that needed to be replaced. I explained to them that I could design some modifications and recommend some maintenance programs the would allow the equipment to be “good as new.”
I was told by the head of Capital Projects for the Dept of Corrections that the legislature always cut his O&M Budget, but if he showed that major equipment had broken and had to be replaced, they would give him the money for that. He also told me that if something was being built, he could “capitalized” or charge off part of his staff to the project capital budget. That allowed him to have more employees.
I ran across the same “institutional logic” in city and county public works departments.
It doesn't matter if it is roads, bridges, sewer systems, electric facilities, etc. The logic is the same.
Oh, now let me tell you my real pet peeve. I had a serious discussion about a regional sewage treatment plant. They wanted to built if not for the current need, but for a huge future quantity that was not forecast to be needed for say 30 to 40 years. The logic was that they could get the federal grant money now and build it with federal money.
I asked what what the estimated life of say the electric motors and the electronic control technology? I asked if over building was just going to waste the value of many of the over-sized pumps and they would need to be replaced before they were needed either from having worn out by being used for many years at partial capacity below their peak efficiency or by being technologically obsolete? I also asked why they needed to build a brand new facility rather than upgrading the existing wastewater facility? They really didn't want to think about those things.
Again, the idea behind DOGE is really important. Yes, we have infrastructure that has not been maintained that needs to be replaced.........but we need to maintain that new infrastructure instead of allowing it to deteriorate.
When the government gets involved it cost $8B for one EV charging station... Nuff said
How about endless wars like Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Ukraine.
Oh yea. And how about a trillion-dollar military budget to police the rest of the world with bases scattered across the globe? You know, almost 15% of our national budget!
Not hard to figure out.
Governments high and low have been spending our money on the invasion meant to destroy us and on social programs for mental illness reconfigured as noble courage under dastardly racist sexist oppression.
It has to stop.
Municipalities, states and the Feds need to cover the basic and projected costs of maintenance FIRST, including adequate civil engineering, and police, fire and utility workers who can all pass the test of the highest qualifications, without lowered standards for sex or race.
They cancelled the Power Outage! Reason: Weather - it was to replace a pole.
I am a happy camper!
Great news.
Replacing a pole can be done when the weather isn’t so bad.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.