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Am I supposed to celebrate the spending of untold billions on an unnecessary weapon of death while my Bridges and roads crumble, my health care system sucks and

Am I supposed to celebrate the spending of untold billions on an unnecessary weapon of death while my Bridges and roads crumble, my health care system sucks and absolutely nothing is being done about, or to prepare for, climate change?? I'm not impressed

deweller 7y ago
Is there a widespread lack of funding for bridges and roads infrastructure in the US? The bridges and roads around me in middle TN are well maintained. These are funded by local government resources, right?
- smcl 7y ago
  Yep, this has been pretty widely reported, in fact when I was looking for an article that covered this the first one I found (from April this year) talked about a bridge in TN which collapsed: https://www.npr.org/2019/04/05/710364158/report-finds-more-than-47-000-structurally-deficient-bridges-in-the-u-s https://www.npr.org/2019/04/05/710364158/report-finds-more-t...
- Tuna-Fish 7y ago
  The reason there were such problems in this area until recently was congressional earmarks. When people lobbied for their representatives to support their pet cause, traditionally the best way they had to do this was to issue an earmark as part of some bill. Earmarks are not heavily fought by other representative because they do not give federal money to a state, rather they are the federal government forcing a state to spend some of their own money on something they wouldn't otherwise have done. The problem with this is that unless the local government decides to overbudget for this and run a surplus every year, this money comes from somewhere. Typically something boring that people don't care about, like infrastructure maintenance. That is, people don't care about it until it starts to actually fail... Then congressional earmarks got banned. Only, things are actually worse now, because it turns out the political horse trading around earmarks was the only reason representatives have to compromise across party lines, instead of always holding a hard line on the issues their supporters want. This is the direct cause of the current political gridlock.
- hanniabu 7y ago
  Yes, lack of funding plus poor planning. In my town it seems that every time a road is newly paved, 2 months later they're tearing it up to do some utility work, then after a single winter season it's back to how it was with potholes everywhere.
- notacoward 7y ago
  > Is there a widespread lack of funding for bridges and roads infrastructure in the US? Yes. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/more-50-000-american-bridges-are-falling-apart-n842356 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/more-50-000-american-br... https://www.statista.com/chart/12737/thousands-of-american-bridges-are-falling-apart/ https://www.statista.com/chart/12737/thousands-of-american-b... Generally towns and states rely on federal funding for a significant part of road and bridge maintenance. Generally, they've been falling behind. Most states have long lists of bridges that they know are not really safe to drive on any more.
Waterluvian 7y ago
The absolute dumbest thing about not spending on infrastructure is that it has colossal potential to invigorate any local economy. Huge amounts of labor and materials needed. And usually you're not shipping massive amounts of aggregate across country, it's from nearby quarries. And you're definitely not watching the money disappear overseas.
- Someone1234 7y ago
  Plus doesn't infrastructure spending normally result in higher returns than it costs? > A recent Business Roundtable study found that $737 billion in public investment over 10 years would set us on the path toward reviving our national infrastructure. While those numbers seem daunting, the report also showed that every additional dollar invested in infrastructure delivers roughly $3.70 in additional economic growth over a period of 20 years. https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/433538-infrastructure-investment-pays-for-itself https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/433538-infr...
  - Waterluvian 7y ago
    Yeah. So I forget macroeconomics class from a long time ago. But there's some effect where a dollar changing hands in a local economy 3 or 4 times has a huge multiplicative effect on economic growth. And being labour and trade intensive means you can campaign on creating jobs for your blue collared workers.
    - CapricornNoble 7y ago
      That's the aptly named Multiplier Effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplier_(economics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplier_(economics)
dctoedt 7y ago
> Am I supposed to celebrate the spending of untold billions on an unnecessary weapon of death .... It'd be wonderful if it were indeed unnecessary. But the human species evolved in an environment where it was adaptive to seek power and dominance. Many individuals, groups, and nations still engage in that quest — even though in time it could lead to a very bad outcome (and might explain the Fermi Paradox [0]). We could, of course, accept that others will achieve superior weaponry and that in due course we'll surrender to them. That doesn't sound so appealing. Unfortunately, the only practicable alternative, at least for now, appears to be to continue to compete in the arms race. It'd doubly unfortunate because there are so many more-constructive things that we'd prefer to spend the money on — if we had the choice. EDIT: An analogy: I live in Houston, very near the Texas Gulf Coast. It'd be great if we didn't have to spend so much money on hurricane- and flood preparation; it's easy to think of better uses for that money. But if we didn't spend the money on hurricane- and flood prep, then we'd risk losing much of what we do have, to forces over which we have no control (at least not in the near term). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

deweller 7y ago

Is there a widespread lack of funding for bridges and roads infrastructure in the US? The bridges and roads around me in middle TN are well maintained. These are funded by local government resources, right?

smcl 7y ago
Yep, this has been pretty widely reported, in fact when I was looking for an article that covered this the first one I found (from April this year) talked about a bridge in TN which collapsed: https://www.npr.org/2019/04/05/710364158/report-finds-more-than-47-000-structurally-deficient-bridges-in-the-u-s https://www.npr.org/2019/04/05/710364158/report-finds-more-t...
Tuna-Fish 7y ago
The reason there were such problems in this area until recently was congressional earmarks. When people lobbied for their representatives to support their pet cause, traditionally the best way they had to do this was to issue an earmark as part of some bill. Earmarks are not heavily fought by other representative because they do not give federal money to a state, rather they are the federal government forcing a state to spend some of their own money on something they wouldn't otherwise have done. The problem with this is that unless the local government decides to overbudget for this and run a surplus every year, this money comes from somewhere. Typically something boring that people don't care about, like infrastructure maintenance. That is, people don't care about it until it starts to actually fail... Then congressional earmarks got banned. Only, things are actually worse now, because it turns out the political horse trading around earmarks was the only reason representatives have to compromise across party lines, instead of always holding a hard line on the issues their supporters want. This is the direct cause of the current political gridlock.
hanniabu 7y ago
Yes, lack of funding plus poor planning. In my town it seems that every time a road is newly paved, 2 months later they're tearing it up to do some utility work, then after a single winter season it's back to how it was with potholes everywhere.
notacoward 7y ago
> Is there a widespread lack of funding for bridges and roads infrastructure in the US? Yes. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/more-50-000-american-bridges-are-falling-apart-n842356 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/more-50-000-american-br... https://www.statista.com/chart/12737/thousands-of-american-bridges-are-falling-apart/ https://www.statista.com/chart/12737/thousands-of-american-b... Generally towns and states rely on federal funding for a significant part of road and bridge maintenance. Generally, they've been falling behind. Most states have long lists of bridges that they know are not really safe to drive on any more.

Waterluvian 7y ago

The absolute dumbest thing about not spending on infrastructure is that it has colossal potential to invigorate any local economy. Huge amounts of labor and materials needed. And usually you're not shipping massive amounts of aggregate across country, it's from nearby quarries. And you're definitely not watching the money disappear overseas.

Someone1234 7y ago
Plus doesn't infrastructure spending normally result in higher returns than it costs? > A recent Business Roundtable study found that $737 billion in public investment over 10 years would set us on the path toward reviving our national infrastructure. While those numbers seem daunting, the report also showed that every additional dollar invested in infrastructure delivers roughly $3.70 in additional economic growth over a period of 20 years. https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/433538-infrastructure-investment-pays-for-itself https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/433538-infr...
- Waterluvian 7y ago
  Yeah. So I forget macroeconomics class from a long time ago. But there's some effect where a dollar changing hands in a local economy 3 or 4 times has a huge multiplicative effect on economic growth. And being labour and trade intensive means you can campaign on creating jobs for your blue collared workers.
  - CapricornNoble 7y ago
    That's the aptly named Multiplier Effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplier_(economics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplier_(economics)

dctoedt 7y ago

> Am I supposed to celebrate the spending of untold billions on an unnecessary weapon of death .... It'd be wonderful if it were indeed unnecessary. But the human species evolved in an environment where it was adaptive to seek power and dominance. Many individuals, groups, and nations still engage in that quest — even though in time it could lead to a very bad outcome (and might explain the Fermi Paradox [0]). We could, of course, accept that others will achieve superior weaponry and that in due course we'll surrender to them. That doesn't sound so appealing. Unfortunately, the only practicable alternative, at least for now, appears to be to continue to compete in the arms race. It'd doubly unfortunate because there are so many more-constructive things that we'd prefer to spend the money on — if we had the choice. EDIT: An analogy: I live in Houston, very near the Texas Gulf Coast. It'd be great if we didn't have to spend so much money on hurricane- and flood preparation; it's easy to think of better uses for that money. But if we didn't spend the money on hurricane- and flood prep, then we'd risk losing much of what we do have, to forces over which we have no control (at least not in the near term). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox