Gavel Gamut
By Jim Redwine
(Week of 01 February 2016)
DIGGING OUT
The American Society of Civil Engineers publishes its assessment of America’s infrastructure every four years. Its most recent report was in 2013. The engineers assign a letter grade to our status. For 2013 it gave us a D+. The Society estimates it would cost us 3.6 trillion dollars and take until 2020 to repair and replace our failing sewers, water systems, dams, electrical grids, bridges, streets and highways.
It does not take lead poisoning in Flint, Michigan for any of us to know we are in trouble. We are rightly concerned about where we live, but, as such disasters as Flint or the ghost town of Times Beach, Missouri warn us, we should be alert to possible health and safety hazards all over America. It is a shock to know we in America may have to take some of the same precautions here we used to worry about in traveling to other countries.
Much of our infrastructure dates from just after the Civil War when we had two hundred million fewer people and no motorized vehicles. Even our interstate highway system dates back to President Eisenhower.
In real dollars, the ASCE estimates that public spending on infrastructure is the lowest it has been since 1947 when we were trying to recover from World War II. And if we are not replacing such things as dangerous bridges, we most likely are not maintaining such things as government structures. Therefore, such necessary items as airports may become unusable.
As with most seemingly intractable problems, an incremental approach is all we can do. There is no magic wand to erase over one hundred years of unaddressed needs. We can start with those systems in crisis such as Flint’s water system and the long term health requirements of children with lead poisoning, a one hundred million dollar price tag is estimated, then we can prioritize the rest of our crumbling home.
Of course, the reason we are in need of trillions today is because we put off spending millions over time. However, there is precedent for our federal and state governments to rely upon. It was less than ten years ago we guaranteed almost one trillion dollars of taxpayer funds to make sure such billion dollar companies as American International Group (AIG), Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would suffer no loss from their greed. We might want to begin our charitable work at home and spend our money on critical infrastructure.
It is not as if we do not have the resources to protect our water systems, etc. If we would create a Marshall Plan for ourselves, we could rebuild America in about the same amount of time we rebuilt Europe.
Where would the money come from? According to the news organization, Mother Jones, for the fiscal year we plan to spend $579 billion dollars on defense. If we could redirect just about 10% of this per year to ourselves, we could make an investment of $60 billion each year, more than one billion per year for every state and U.S. territory. That would not give us $3.6 trillion by 2020, but it would by 2076, our three hundredth birthday.
Should someone complain we will not be caught up on our infrastructure for sixty years, I respond, if we had done this sixty years ago, there would be no lead in Flint’s water today and people might be able to live in Times Beach.
One of the not so collateral benefits is the money would not only be spent on ourselves, it would be paid to ourselves. And for those of you with a more liberal bent, you could take satisfaction in America spending 10% less on destroying other countries and 10% more on rebuilding our own.
