[Opinion] A Disaster Brought Awareness but Little Action on Infrastructure

[cpzilliacus]

N.Y. Times: A Disaster Brought Awareness but Little Action on Infrastructure

Like the weather, the need to repair America's troubled bridges is something that everyone talks about, without doing a thing about it. Or at least they do not do nearly enough.

President Obama is trying to change that equation. He has said so repeatedly in his State of the Union speeches and other messages, and he returned to that theme a few days ago. This time, Mr. Obama called for closing loophole in corporate and business tax codes to free up $302 billion that would be spent over four years to fix or replace aging bridges, roads, tunnels and rails – an infrastructure that he has described quite reasonably, if inelegantly, as "raggedy."

What becomes of this latest presidential appeal is swathed in doubt. Anything that smacks of a tax increase is bound to face resistance in Congress, especially in this election year. Even catastrophe has failed to create a sense of urgency sufficient to spur officialdom to do much more to keep the ground, literally, from falling out from underneath us.