The U.S. has underinvested in infrastructure for decades
Much analysis has been done to show that the infrastructure failures of Minneapolis and New Orleans were not isolated events but are symptomatic of an underfunded infrastructure system that stretches from coast to coast and touches nearly every city and town in between.
The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) graded American infrastructure in 2005 and the results should be a wake-up call to decision makers in the federal government. In category after category, the story was the same: deteriorating conditions approaching dangerous levels of disrepair, with needs outpacing allocated funds. The ASCE estimated that the infrastructure funding needs totaled $1.6 trillion over a five-year period. And yet, funding levels as a share of all federal expenditures are exactly the same as they were more than twenty years ago.
As the funding gap widens and the condition of our infrastructure further deteriorates, America’s infrastructure crisis becomes graver every day. Although some on both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue have recently begun to grasp the magnitude of this problem, we cannot wait for the rest of Washington to begin to act. |
