Smoking Guns: The New Infrastructure Report Card

From ASCE's Infrastructure Report Card

(Click for high-res version)

"You know a D turns into a B so easily."--Homer Simpson

Every four years, the American Society of Civil Engineers releases an infrastructure report card. If America had a Mom and Dad, they wouldn't be too happy right now.The grades are out, and the bottom line is a D+. The estimated investment needed by 2020 is $3.6 trillion.

Considering that the Iraq war cost will, after interest on the debt and Veteran's health care, come to $6.2 trillion, I'd say our grandchildren were doubly robbed. If some wingnut had the balls to say, well, we blew our infrastructure money on Iraq, so we'll just have to suffer, I would calmly suggest that what he knows about economics, if converted to gasoline, wouldn't fill a piss ant's go-cart enough to go around a cheerio once.

I'm not Dean Baker, but as he likes to point out, I have an advantage over many so called economists in the pundit class--I can do basic arithmetic. 2020 is 7 years away. $3.6 trillion, divided by 7 equals $514,285,714,285. A half a trillion dollars a year for 7 years to get our infrastructure up to par would, of course, be a major investment. It would require borrowing a lot more (at negative real interest rates). It would require hiring a lot of unemployed people. It would require buying a lot of materials that are currently cheap. We would have to, essentially, be willing to buy low. The payoffs for this investment are enormous (see the info-graphic, right).

This is from the executive summary of the report card:

We know that investing in infrastructure is essential to support healthy, vibrant communities. Infrastructure is also critical for long-term economic growth, increasing GDP, employment, household income, and exports. The reverse is also true – without prioritizing our nation’s infrastructure needs, deteriorating conditions can become a drag on the economy.

One would think that the very real threat we face from our crumbling infrastructure would be enough to make Americans want to spend to save all the people that will die on our crumbling roads, our collapsing bridges, or from our exploding gas mains... If only we could make infrastructure spending as sexy as shock and awe...

The report card from 2009 stated that 1/3 of all traffic fatalities, or about 10,000 deaths per year, are caused by poor road conditions. I wonder how much money we'd spend on war if terrorists were killing that many Americans every year?

The report card is full of all kinds of interesting facts that won't make it to the news, where mythical mushroom cloud smoking guns get more air time. The report card is full of many warnings of what will happen if we don't invest, none of which will get the kind of main stream air time as Dick Cheney telling us we'd be greeted as liberators, or Donald Rumsfeld telling us the WMD are "...in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat." In short, this report card, like the last one, will get ignored, for the most part, by the press that helped sell us a $6 trillion war.

Since so many in the American Press were so anxious to get us into that war, we aren't hearing a whole lot about the group-think of calling anyone who doubted Bush and Cheney a traitor. We won't hear much from a press (that bought the lies) about those lies. But here we have a chance for all the reporters and pundits, from Bill "Iraq has been won decisively and honorably" Kristol to Tom "FU" Friedman, to step up and recommend we spend big on something that will cost a little more than half of what Iraq cost, and this time the spending really will more than pay for itself.

So what are you waiting for? All you Iraq War cheerleaders should be out there now, with this report card (they even have an app) in your hand, telling the intransigent House GOP to get off their bloody hands and fix this country now. After all, we wouldn't want the smoking gun to be another city block going up in a gas main explosion.

Ezra Klein Should Know Our Roads Are Killing People

Ezra Klein has a commendable piece on facts about guns and mass murders, but I'm shocked that he doesn't realize that we also have an epidemic of death in this country from poor road conditions. Here's Ezra:

If roads were collapsing all across the United States, killing dozens of drivers, we would surely see that as a moment to talk about what we could do to keep roads from collapsing. If terrorists were detonating bombs in port after port, you can be sure Congress would be working to upgrade the nation’s security measures. If a plague was ripping through communities, public-health officials would be working feverishly to contain it.  

Only with gun violence do we respond to repeated tragedies by saying that mourning is acceptable but discussing how to prevent more tragedies is not. “Too soon,” howl supporters of loose gun laws. But as others have observed, talking about how to stop mass shootings in the aftermath of a string of mass shootings isn’t “too soon.” It’s much too late.

Actually, the American Society of Civil Engineers says roadway conditions are a significant factor in 1/3 of all traffic fatalities.

Americans spend 4.2 billion hours a year stuck in traffic at a cost of $78.2 billion a year--$710 per motorist. Roadway conditions are a significant factor in about one-third of traffic fatalities. Poor road conditions cost U.S. motorists $67 billion a year in repairs and operating costs--$333 per motorist; 33% of America's major roads are in poor or mediocre condition and 36% of the nation's major urban highways are congested. The current spending level of $70.3 billion for highway capital improvements is well below the estimated $186 billion needed annually to substantially improve the nation's highways.

US traffic fatalities average over 30,000 per year, so we have over 10,000 deaths due to road conditions, and many billions of dollars wasted, every year. Seems like we learned to ignore our deadly infrastructure and our epidemic of gun violence. Maybe Americans are ignoring all kinds of things that are literally killing people? Pollution, Climate Change, Budget Cuts, Inadequate Health Care, Wars...

If terrorists were killing 10,000 Americans every year, I wonder how much we'd spend on war and security? The ASCE says we need to spend $2.2 trillion over the next five years to fix our crumbling infrastructure and make ourselves safer, more productive, and more competitive. So, a little over $400 billion a year (which we can borrow at negative interest and buy cheap materials with) seems like a real bargain.