Superficial, But A Start
Today's Los Angeles Times contains an editorial that took up a serious subject, described it rationally, but then fell down at the last, most critical step. The subject? Our crumbling infrastructure.
When the World Trade Center went down in 2001, it led to two wars, hundreds of billions in expenditures and the creation of a Homeland Security bureaucracy. When the Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis went down last year, it led to a $1-billion House bill to mandate repair of federal bridges, which will probably be vetoed by President Bush if it gets past the Senate.
Obviously, neither the scale nor the causes of these two American tragedies are comparable, but the vastly different responses do say something about political will. The 9/11 attacks struck an emotional chord that infrastructure failures such as the I-35W bridge collapse or the ruined levees of New Orleans do not. Yet the consequences of our apathy about public infrastructure could be just as dire and deadly as our pre-9/11 apathy about Islamic extremism.
More than a quarter of the nation's bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, and it would take $65 billion to fix them all. In 2006, almost 43,000 people died on U.S. roads and nearly 2.6 million were injured -- casualties that could have been reduced if more had been invested in safety improvements. Traffic congestion in big cities such as Los Angeles is choking off economic growth, and under-investment in public transit contributes to high gasoline prices and air pollution. And the federal fund that is devoted to solving many of these problems has run out of money. ...
Bush and Republican presidential candidate John McCain tend to blame earmarks for all the country's infrastructure woes, but it isn't that simple. Earmarks accounted for about $24 billion of the $286-billion transportation bill in 2005, or roughly 8% of the money. Yet a landmark report from the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission estimates that it would take $225 billion a year for the next 50 years to sufficiently upgrade the nation's crumbling infrastructure. Just cutting out pork won't come close to covering that.
While noting the different responses to 9/11 and the collapse of Minnesota's I-35 bridge was actually more apropos than the editorialist realized, the writer failed to see the connection between the two. Perhaps if we hadn't been spending billions of dollars a day on those two wars, one of which had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11, more money would have been available to do things that need doing in this country. Yes, the war appropriations have all been "off-budget," but the interest payments on all that borrowed money still have to be found and budgeted. Pulling troops out of Iraq (something this administration has made clear will not happen on the Bush watch) and forcing Iraq to start spending some of the billions of dollars it has from oil revenues on its own security would ease some of the financial strain the US is facing.
The Times writer also suggests some possible solutions to find the money necessary to fix our roads and bridges, but merely raising the gas tax and ending ear marks or inventing new taxes (mileage based taxes) or privatizing our freeways with toll roads in and of themselves may not be enough under the limited analysis the writer has chosen. The editorial seems to be locked into a zero sum game which does not take into consideration the benefit of putting a sizable segment of our population back to work at good paying jobs. The results of more workers actually working, receiving paychecks, paying taxes, buying food and clothing and all the other necessities and goods would more than offset the initial appropriation.
Having said all that, I still have to admit that the Times editorial board did the right thing by raising the issue, even if I disagreed with some of its conclusions. At least we can start talking seriously about it.
When the World Trade Center went down in 2001, it led to two wars, hundreds of billions in expenditures and the creation of a Homeland Security bureaucracy. When the Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis went down last year, it led to a $1-billion House bill to mandate repair of federal bridges, which will probably be vetoed by President Bush if it gets past the Senate.
Obviously, neither the scale nor the causes of these two American tragedies are comparable, but the vastly different responses do say something about political will. The 9/11 attacks struck an emotional chord that infrastructure failures such as the I-35W bridge collapse or the ruined levees of New Orleans do not. Yet the consequences of our apathy about public infrastructure could be just as dire and deadly as our pre-9/11 apathy about Islamic extremism.
More than a quarter of the nation's bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, and it would take $65 billion to fix them all. In 2006, almost 43,000 people died on U.S. roads and nearly 2.6 million were injured -- casualties that could have been reduced if more had been invested in safety improvements. Traffic congestion in big cities such as Los Angeles is choking off economic growth, and under-investment in public transit contributes to high gasoline prices and air pollution. And the federal fund that is devoted to solving many of these problems has run out of money. ...
Bush and Republican presidential candidate John McCain tend to blame earmarks for all the country's infrastructure woes, but it isn't that simple. Earmarks accounted for about $24 billion of the $286-billion transportation bill in 2005, or roughly 8% of the money. Yet a landmark report from the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission estimates that it would take $225 billion a year for the next 50 years to sufficiently upgrade the nation's crumbling infrastructure. Just cutting out pork won't come close to covering that.
While noting the different responses to 9/11 and the collapse of Minnesota's I-35 bridge was actually more apropos than the editorialist realized, the writer failed to see the connection between the two. Perhaps if we hadn't been spending billions of dollars a day on those two wars, one of which had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11, more money would have been available to do things that need doing in this country. Yes, the war appropriations have all been "off-budget," but the interest payments on all that borrowed money still have to be found and budgeted. Pulling troops out of Iraq (something this administration has made clear will not happen on the Bush watch) and forcing Iraq to start spending some of the billions of dollars it has from oil revenues on its own security would ease some of the financial strain the US is facing.
The Times writer also suggests some possible solutions to find the money necessary to fix our roads and bridges, but merely raising the gas tax and ending ear marks or inventing new taxes (mileage based taxes) or privatizing our freeways with toll roads in and of themselves may not be enough under the limited analysis the writer has chosen. The editorial seems to be locked into a zero sum game which does not take into consideration the benefit of putting a sizable segment of our population back to work at good paying jobs. The results of more workers actually working, receiving paychecks, paying taxes, buying food and clothing and all the other necessities and goods would more than offset the initial appropriation.
Having said all that, I still have to admit that the Times editorial board did the right thing by raising the issue, even if I disagreed with some of its conclusions. At least we can start talking seriously about it.
Labels: Budget, Earmarks, Infrastructure
posted by Diane at 4:22 AM
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