Honestly, our general public really hasn't had any direct say in how our tax dollars are spent for most of America's history. Outside of really rare individual

Honestly, our general public really hasn't had any direct say in how our tax dollars are spent for most of America's history. Outside of really rare individual referendums, the public doesn't sit down and decide on individual taxes like bridge repair/etc. We're not a democracy; we're a republic. If you look at polling, virtually everybody in our country would be in favor of repairing bridges/etc. Furthermore, both political parties in every major election for the past few decades have explicitly promised to enact massive funding for exactly this. Ergo - we're all voting in favor of major infrastructure funding - i.e. voting "yes, please, tax me and pay for bridge repair. Do it." The public will is absolutely behind this. Our real problem is we're terrible judges of character - we elected people who just pocketed the money, instead. Oops.