Crumbling of America

[Riverside Frwy]

Has anyone watched this show on this History Channel? I just watch the road segment of it.....and.....damn it's pretty bad.

Holes on Bridges so deep you can see the traffic underneath?  

Our major freeways gridlocked(including California 91) with concrete/asphalt that looks like crap?  

Obviously the federal government is too busy spending our tax dollars on our military worrying about other countries and not on domestic problems....I hate the government....

It seems the feds are relying on our states' budgets to handle our roads.....and it's not enough. Our state budgets are already stain as it is....

[agentsteel53]

I hate the government....

government hears ya.  government don't care.

[KEK Inc.]

California doesn't have a state budget. 

Anyways, the government is spending on other domestic things as well, that aren't necessarily infrastructure-related.  We also have that looming debt. 

[leifvanderwall]

It's not that our government is depriving us of road funds , it is the elected officials in our government and their committees. Many people do not know about the International Republican Institute that John McCain chairs. Well the IRI receives 10s of millions of dollars from two other committees and yes those millions are our taxpayer dollars. McCain's good bud, Sarah Palin requested a lot of earmark funding for her smalltown of Wasilla when she was mayor, including a rail system to a ski resort priced in the millions.

It's been known for sometime that many of our roads and bridges would sometime need to be replaced. If the I-35W bridge falling into the Mississippi during rush hour was not a wake up call, I don't what is. The Obama Administration has tried hard to do some repair jobs including the rebuilding of I-196 in downtown Gd Rapids and 6 laning I-94 between US 131 and Lovers Lane including a restructuring of the Westnedge interchange in Kalamazoo. I hate to say this, but the only way we can catch up on the concrete and bridge crumblings  is through the toll road system. I know toll roads are poisonous jargon in this forum, but if you care about improving or building new roads , you might have to pay a little extra.

[agentsteel53]

It's not that our government is depriving us of road funds , it is the elected officials in our government

wait... what?  that's like saying "it's not the heart that circulates blood, it is the various muscles of the heart".  Reductio ad obtusum. If we got rid of all our elected (and appointed) officials, we would not have a government, by definition.

[haljackey]

Building it is one thing, maintaining it is another.

I remember hearing a shocking stat during the Minneapolis Bridge Collapse that a huge number of bridges and overpasses in the US were "structurally deficient".  Furthermore, transport departments were spending minimal funds to keep these structures on "life support" rather than restoring/reconstructing them.

The US is at war... with two countries!  Allocating funds in wartime + a deep recession while attempting to address an aging population means there isn't a lot of funding available for other programs.  Things are to a similar extent here in Canada, but our economy is recovering and we're only fighting one war and withdrawing next year.

[PAHighways]

Has anyone watched this show on this History Channel? I just watch the road segment of it.....and.....damn it's pretty bad.

I have and if I remember correctly, my governor is interviewed.

[Scott5114]

I remember hearing a shocking stat during the Minneapolis Bridge Collapse that a huge number of bridges and overpasses in the US were "structurally deficient".  Furthermore, transport departments were spending minimal funds to keep these structures on "life support" rather than restoring/reconstructing them.

Ever looked at the National Bridge Inventory? It has a list of all bridges and their sufficiency ratings. You can look up the bridges in your area–I found a bridge I use every so often has something like 8% sufficiency.

Here's a mirror of it. http://nationalbridges.com/

[Riverside Frwy]

The US is at war... with two countries!  Allocating funds in wartime + a deep recession while attempting to address an aging population means there isn't a lot of funding available for other programs.  Things are to a similar extent here in Canada, but our economy is recovering and we're only fighting one war and withdrawing next year.

I would buy into the war excuse if wasn't for the fact the US is fighting nothing but armed civilians. Funny how the US Government can afford a $6 Billion dollar aircraft carrier all these fancy tanks but cannot afford to properly maintain a 10 mile stretch of interstate? Not buying it one bit.

[agentsteel53]

nothing but armed civilians

didn't General Custer have something similar to say on the topic?

the foolishness of the war is not due to any pathetic nature of the opposition.

[realjd]

I would buy into the war excuse if wasn't for the fact the US is fighting nothing but armed civilians. Funny how the US Government can afford a $6 Billion dollar aircraft carrier all these fancy tanks but cannot afford to properly maintain a 10 mile stretch of interstate? Not buying it one bit.

Defense/war is one of the few powers constitutionally granted to the federal government, thus a large of their budget goes toward that. Everything else (transportation, education, etc.) is the responsibility of each individual state. While the federal government has been known to help out every once in a while, it's ultimately up to the state governments to maintain their highway infrastructure.

At least that's how it's supposed to work.

[J N Winkler]

I would buy into the war excuse if wasn't for the fact the US is fighting nothing but armed civilians.

Actually, it is precisely because we are trying to fight armed civilians that we are facing the present problem of imperial overstretch.  When we have overwhelming military superiority in terms of conventional arms, as we do in Iraq and previously had in Vietnam, the name of the game becomes making the war far too expensive for us to fight, and sweating us out over a period of years.  This is why Iraqi guerrillas specialize in Munroe-effect IEDs which cost very little to make but can pierce armor and can be assembled by semiskilled labor.  When one of these IEDs goes off, it sticks the American taxpayer for hundreds of thousands (probably millions) of dollars in medical care for the soldiers who are wounded but not killed outright.

The Vietnamese pursued a similar strategy.  There was a military logistics study done in the late 1960's (referred to in Neil Sheehan's A Bright Shining Lie) which calculated that although we were killing something like ten or twenty Vietnamese per American combat death, each of our combat deaths cost us far more than each Vietnamese death cost the Vietnamese.  They realized, correctly, that as long as they stayed in the game, we would eventually tire of wasting lives and money and they would be rid of us for good.

I tend to agree that we spend too much on the military, largely because the strong legislative consensus in favor of defense spending (Republicans love it, and Democrats fear to oppose it) encourages a lack of focus on clearly defined strategic priorities and results in large proportions of the defense budget going to sectors which do not provide a high social rate of return.  But it is not straightforward to transfer money straight from the defense budget to infrastructure investment.  And politicians of all stripes are leery about raising taxes, because we get somewhat less back from our taxes and private contributions which might be regarded as compulsory (e.g., health insurance) than citizens of other industrial democracies get from theirs.

[Mr_Northside]

Has anyone watched this show on this History Channel? I just watch the road segment of it.....and.....damn it's pretty bad.

I have and if I remember correctly, my governor is interviewed.

I don't think Fast Eddie has ever met a camera and/or microphone he didn't like.

[TXtoNJ]

I tend to agree that we spend too much on the military, largely because the strong legislative consensus in favor of defense spending (Republicans love it, and Democrats fear to oppose it) encourages a lack of focus on clearly defined strategic priorities and results in large proportions of the defense budget going to sectors which do not provide a high social rate of return.  But it is not straightforward to transfer money straight from the defense budget to infrastructure investment.  And politicians of all stripes are leery about raising taxes, because we get somewhat less back from our taxes and private contributions which might be regarded as compulsory (e.g., health insurance) than citizens of other industrial democracies get from theirs.

As a Kansan, you must be aware that it's less a political issue than it is an issue of cutbacks in military spending absolutely demolishing the economies of rural portions of the US. Military Keynesianism has been the most consistent US policy since the end of WWII.

[bugo]

Ever looked at the National Bridge Inventory? It has a list of all bridges and their sufficiency ratings. You can look up the bridges in your area–I found a bridge I use every so often has something like 8% sufficiency.
Here's a mirror of it. http://nationalbridges.com/

I've seen bridges with an 0% rating.

[Hellfighter]

I thought they were talking about Michigan... 

[Bickendan]

Ever looked at the National Bridge Inventory? It has a list of all bridges and their sufficiency ratings. You can look up the bridges in your area–I found a bridge I use every so often has something like 8% sufficiency.
Here's a mirror of it. http://nationalbridges.com/

I've seen bridges with an 0% rating.

I've driven on bridges with a 0% rating. Any day now, and the Sellwood will...