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<Insertname Infrastructure Crisis> Could Have Been Averted Get really really used to that headline in the US, because the way we're headed, everything from bri
by M_Grey 10y ago
<Insertname Infrastructure Crisis> Could Have Been Averted
Get really really used to that headline in the US, because the way we're headed, everything from bridges to dams are going to be subject to that headline. We've neglected basic infrastructure in this country for so long, that people have grown up without realizing there's a problem in the first place.
- artursapek 10y agoI'm 24, and have grown up here. First time I really heard about it was Trump at his rallies.
- topquark 10y agoThen you haven't been paying attention. This is a perennial topic for both Republicans and Democrats.
- artursapek 10y agoPerhaps that's the case. I never paid much attention to politics before this guy came in and made it entertaining.
- astrodust 10y ago"Infrastructure" necessarily includes schools, which at this point are in many cases scary useless.
- M_Grey 10y agoI feel like "useless" is too kind... plenty of them are actively harmful and dangerous.
- astrodust 10y agoAlthough there's a few bright spots, the stories I hear about the "No Child Left Behind" generation are terrifying. Standardized testing has destroyed everything and the current education secretary is going to burn what's left of the system to the ground in the name of profit.
- M_Grey 10y agoThe dream of an electorate too stupid and uneducated to grasp even a basic consensus reality is going to be arriving in a hurry.
- xyzzy4 10y agoSchools are more similar to prisons than infrastructure.
- artursapek 10y agoHeh, I just started my kid in a private school.
- nscalf 10y agoFor all of the hate that Trump gets (I personally think most of it is earned), he has touched on some really important issues that have been ignored for a long time. Infrastructure is one of those.
- M_Grey 10y agoThen problem is not that he's 100% wrong, the problem is that when he's right it seems to be of the "Broken Clock" variety. When there is little rhyme or reason to the views he takes, he's bound to end up in a few positive places (such as today, condemning anti-Semitism). The problem with Trump is that they're only positive in these highly isolated, episodic ways.
- artursapek 10y agoThat sounds like a lazy way to dismiss a guy who maybe deserves more credit than he gets.
- macintux 10y agoIt's painful to extend credit to a man with no moral compass, no demonstrated capacity for learning, no comprehension of the damage he does, no understanding of history, no concept of loyalty to anything outside of himself.
- MegaButts 10y agoWhat does Trump deserve credit for?
- ythn 10y agoAre you going to try and find "the problem" with anything he deserves credit for?
- M_Grey 10y agoLet me get this straight... you want the person to whom you're replying, to guess at what achievements someone else might claim for Trump, and then guess at any problems there might be with them?
- jmedefind 10y agoIt's been talked about a lot for a long time. But nothing ever gets pass congress. Obama tried to pass a lot of infrastructure spending as part of the 2008 Stimulation package, but a lot didn't make it into the final budget. Everyone wants it fixed, but no one wants to pay for it. Many states fund their roads and bridges via a gas tax. But no one wants to raise the price of gas. So nothing gets fixed through that channel either. It's a real problem in the US and our divisive and nut job "party first" politics.
- vermontdevil 10y agoSome states divert a % of the gas tax to other budget lines instead of transportation infrastructure. Then people want to either raise the tax or resist against it without realizing that 100% of the gas tax should be 100% for what it is originally intended to be. You can find numerous examples by googling Gas Tax Diversions such as this one: https://www.irtba.org/GasTax https://www.irtba.org/GasTax
- stuckagain 10y agoAll states spend much more on roads than they take in on gas taxes, so the issue of whether gas taxes are "diverted" is moot. Every state also "diverts" a huge amount of general revenues to road building and maintenance. To stay with your example of Illinois, which recently passed a "lockbox" ballot measure for road funds, tolls and fuel taxes take in 1.6 billion a year but the state spends over 4 billion a year just on road maintenance alone, not even counting ancillary expenses like DMV, State Police, etc.
- TYPE_FASTER 10y agoObama tried to make it happen for a long time: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/03/obama-calls-infrastructure-spending-fifth-time-five-years/316815/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/03/obama-c...
- csours 10y agoTip for the future: be more specific in comments. It seems you are talking about this crisis, other commenters are talking about infrastructure crises in general.
- ForrestN 10y agoObama tried to convince congressional Republicans to do an infrastructure bill for all eight years of his presidency. Republicans refused to even try to find common ground. Obama talked about it a lot, too, during both of his campaigns.
- lettergram 10y agoThats definitely true. However, there were things he could have done to try and fix it. For example, he passed Obamacare through without any regard for Republican thoughts. He could have done the same for infrastructure, in fact, i'd argue the infrastructure spending would have been more in line legally and he would have had less fighting.
- maxerickson 10y agoThey did a $100 billion infrastructure package right at the start of the term, before ACA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Recovery_and_Reinvestment_Act_of_2009#Infrastructure_investment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Recovery_and_Reinvest...
- ForrestN 10y agoThis is simply not accurate. The ACA is a deep, deep compromise compared to what liberals wanted, and was in fact largely modeled on the Republican plan crafted by Mitt Romney in Massachusetts. If Obama had crafted Obamacare without any regard for Republican thoughts, we would have government provided universal healthcare. The fact that obstructionist Republicans decided to oppose the bill in the end does not reflect the fact that it was passed after much consultation with the right and is, indeed, a compromise.
- rhapsodic 10y agoDuring the first two years of his presidency his party controlled both houses of Congress. He didn't need Republicans to get it done.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- colanderman 10y agoI live in a liberal bubble and hear about infrastructure woes often enough, for example from John Oliver here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpzvaqypav8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpzvaqypav8
- theandrewbailey 10y agoWhere is the "here" you speak of? I've lived in the Rust Belt and Appalachia for most of my life (I'm 28), and I've watched infrastructure rust and fall apart this whole time.
- cgearhart 10y agoInfrastructure and transportation has been a significant issue in US elections since at least 2008 (see below). Historically, democrats have sought significant public investment for infrastructure; republican proposals have preferred incentivizing private investment. So while everyone agrees that it needs to happen, partisanship prevents anything from happening. Official Democratic & Republican Party Platforms: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/platforms.php http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/platforms.php Occurrances of the word "infrastructure" in party platforms: 2016 D: 23, R: 3 2012 D: 26, R: 11 2008 D: 28, R: 6 2004 D: 4, R: 12 2000 D: 5, R: 5 "Infrastructure" as... Prominent Issue (i.e., specific paper or plan released): Clinton 2016 -- https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/fixing-americas-infrastructure/ https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/fixing-americas-infras... Sanders 2016 -- https://berniesanders.com/issues/creating-jobs-rebuilding-america/ https://berniesanders.com/issues/creating-jobs-rebuilding-am... Trump 2016 -- (dead link) https://www.donaldjtrump.com/policies/an-americas-infrastructure-first-plan/ https://www.donaldjtrump.com/policies/an-americas-infrastruc... Obama 2008 -- (dead link) http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/issues/FactSheetTransportation.pdf http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/issues/FactSheetTransportatio... Minor Issue (i.e., some mention): Romney 2012 -- https://grist.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/believeinamerica-planforjobsandeconomicgrowth-full.pdf https://grist.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/believeinamerica-p... McCain 2008 -- (dead link) http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/CBCD3A48-4B0E-4864-8BE1-D04561C132EA.htm http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/CBCD3A48-4B0E-486... Kerry 2004 -- http://www.4president.org/brochures/2004/johnkerry2004brochure.htm http://www.4president.org/brochures/2004/johnkerry2004brochu... Article comparing Obama/McCain 2008: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/9/6/589460/- http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/9/6/589460/-
- macintux 10y agoI don't get that. Every time a bridge collapses somewhere, we talk about it. During the financial crisis, we talked about infrastructure spending as a way to get more printed money in circulation. It may be a surprise to those who don't follow the news, but what can you do about that?
- maxerickson 10y agoWe talk about bridge collapses because they happen infrequently enough to be news. Wikipedia has the claim that there are more than 600,000 (!) bridges in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bridges_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bridges_in_the_United_... Imagine if even 0.1% of them were failing catastrophically each year (as opposed to being removed from service in a planned way).
- acomjean 10y agoI was a civil engineer in the late 90s. They've been talking about infrastructure spending running short in the US since then. Nobody listens. Upkeep is expensive and nobody wants to pay for it.. occasionally a big project gets funded but for the most part it's just highways that get funding.
- M_Grey 10y ago...And that's partly because highway funding is a leash the federal government keeps on the states. I suppose people need a few huge disasters to appreciate the need for it?
- kiba 10y agoI don't know what you mean by neglect. If you keep overspending on new roads and bridges and sewer lines, you're going to see your maintenance bill come due. As an example, I see sidewalks being built in the middle of nowhere, or that people so scarcely use them, that you wonder why spend money at all. I see parking lots half empty of cars, or worse. All that means is longer roads, wider roads, longer sewer lines, and so forth. Somebody has to pay for all of that.
- yardie 10y agoIf a town has the room for expansion then they will plan to expand. It's cheaper to do this through farm fields than when the housing is already there. And most of this will be done with the input of the land developers. i.e. They plan to build a 120 unit housing development so the city has to plan and fund a sewer and roads for 120 households. Sewer and roads are fixed costs if you plan for 120 units why not 500 it's only marginally more expensive. Now that plumbed land is more valuable. The next group of developers can do up to 380 units without waiting for sewer and roads to be built. A prospective buyer isn't looking to buy a house 4-5 years down the line. They have the money now and want it right away. Time of delivery effects the purchase price which is how cheap exurbs become pricier suburbs.
- Shivetya 10y agoReally people need to quit over exaggerating the bridge issue and realize most of that is driven by groups whose main source of income is heavy construction. First the bridge problems are down to nine percent of all bridge from a high of over twenty percent in 1992. Second not all bridges or roads are under the domain of the federal government and nor can it dictate that the order they are worked on. you want some real neglect, go look at all the heavy rail built for city rail. Washington DC is a poster child for deferred maintenance and so are the cities of Portland and Seattle who always seem to want money for new stuff. Not everything you read in the news is as dire as it is presented and special interest groups are well versed on how to pull the right heart strings. Is this to say everything is perfect, no, but it certainly is not as dire as presented and needs to be rationally examined and prioritized.
- M_Grey 10y agoYou know that not all infrastructure is bridges and roads, right?