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> The problems of public infrastructure are not money. The problems of American public infrastructure are exactly money, which is to say, the differences in fu
by solatic 6y ago
> The problems of public infrastructure are not money.
The problems of American public infrastructure are exactly money, which is to say, the differences in funding capital projects versus funding maintenance. Forget public toilets for a second - one of the reasons why America's roads and bridges are falling apart is because they were built with Federal dollars, but no Federal provision was made for their maintenance. So what happens is that non-urban localities look at the responses to their maintenance RFPs, calculate that they would need to triple property taxes to afford it, and so decide not to do anything instead. Why would the maintenance of public toilets be any different? It's just another public expenditure. So writers like the author come up with mental gymnastics to try to find some kind of private solution that will take quarters from those who save every quarter to help them get their next fix. As if an addict would prefer a toilet to a dose. It's facetious on its face (pun intended, I guess).
America isn't like this because of "culture". America is like this because of the combination of a) Congress not being able to shoulder these maintenance burdens itself (because they are the responsibility of state governments) b) state governments being both financially restrained (people are willing to pay only so much in state taxes when they already pay so much in federal taxes) and monetarily constrained (no power to print their own dollars, often constitutionally required to balance their budgets). So nobody is empowered (in the real sense of funding) to provide for the maintenance of the public commons.
- burlesona 6y agoThis is true. It’s also true that the US system is relatively unique among western nations in being skewed in favor of rural rather than urban interests. The US has the most extensive and in many cases over-developed rural infrastructure in the world, and that creates an enormous maintenance and funding drain compared to many nations that invest principally in their major cities and not so much in their rural hinterlands. Perhaps the most extreme counter-example being Singapore which has no rural hinterlands.
- LaundroMat 6y agoIt's of another scale,but Belgium (especially Flanders) has the same problem. The political party that was in power for a long time favourited rural areas (because that's where the voters were). I guess the same applies to the US with the Republican party?
- nradov 6y agoDo you have any actual data to show that our roads and bridges are falling apart? Where I live the potholes get filled and none of our bridges have collapsed.
- Lammy 6y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWCCIQQXfZI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWCCIQQXfZI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L6fsel9hwg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L6fsel9hwg
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y agohttps://www.rpc.senate.gov/policy-papers/fixing-americas-bridges https://www.rpc.senate.gov/policy-papers/fixing-americas-bri...
- nradov 6y agoSo only 8% of bridges are in poor condition. It looks like most places are doing fine.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y agoThat's only 47,084 bridges.
- notsureaboutpg 6y agoIdk, US tax rate is very high, there's a lot of money. California lost in the tens of billions to unemployment fraud this year (because of pandemic) and its still running a budget surplus this year. There's money, it's just being wasted.
- timoth3y 6y ago> no Federal provision was made for their maintenance. That's not quite true. The federal gas tax was created specifically to fund the construction and maintenance of roads and bridges. States add their own taxes onto this. The problem is not that no one thought about maintenance. It's that politicians have not raised the gas tax in about 30 years. Thus, steadily shrinking the amount of real dollars available for maintenance. It's not a lack of foresight. It's a lack of political will.
- solatic 6y agoActually, the first federal gasoline taxes in the US predate the interstate highway system and were part of a bill that raised taxes on a variety of goods in the name of general revenue. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenue_Act_of_1932 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenue_Act_of_1932 and therefore not really related to maintenance. Furthermore, a great proportion of gasoline tax revenue in the modern era is not spent on highway maintenance but rather diverted to other earmarked purposes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_Sta... A lack of political will might prevent Congress from raising the tax that would most economically efficiently raise revenue for highway maintenance, but it is not the primary roadblock (what is it with me and the puns today?) that prevents Congress from spending less-economically-efficiently-raised funds on infrastructure maintenance.