5 Myths Behind Obama’s Infrastructure Spending Push

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Shortly after the $830 billion stimulus bill was enacted in 2009, President Obama boasted that it included the “largest new investment since President Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System,” and said it would “help states create a 21st century infrastructure” and “fuel growth in an industry that’s been hard hit.”

Now, nearly 2 1/2 years later, Obama wants another $50 billion as part of his American Jobs Act to create jobs and fix “our crumbling infrastructure.” But he still seems to buy into several myths about the nation’s infrastructure.

• Infrastructure spending is declining: “We have deferred tough decisions,” the president said last fall, and “our shortsightedness has come due.”

But inflation-adjusted infrastructure spending climbed 23% from 1990 to 2007, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Federal, state and local governments spend a combined total of more than $356 billion a year. It was 2.4% of GDP in 2007, not far from the 3% in 1960, when the U.S. was first building the interstate highway system.

To be sure, groups such as the American Society of Civil Engineers have consistently urged greater spending to improve deficient or obsolete roads, bridges and water supply systems.

• Our infrastructure is falling apart: Touting the new jobs bill, Obama complained about “our crumbling roads and our crumbling bridges.” This alarm has been sounded for decades.

In 1988, a Federal Highway Administration official said America faced a looming “bridge crisis.” In 1993, President Clinton pushed in vain for $100 billion more infrastructure spending to avoid a “crisis.” A 2005 USA Today headline screamed: “Report: Nation’s in frastructure crumbling.” In 2009, the New York Times reported that “U.S. infrastructure is in dire straits.” But the dire warnings never seemed to come true.

“It is crumbling somewhere, but not everywhere,” said Samuel Staley, a Reason Foundation transportation expert and associate director at Florida State University’s DeVoe Moore Center. “Some states have done really well with their transportation money.”

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It’s time to re-build America, dude.

Thanks for publishing IBD’s great essay.
Let me tell you all about two ”infrastructure” projects in my city.

One took a lane away from several of our busiest streets to dedicate that space for bicyclists!
Now we still have most of our bicyclists on our sidewalks and still not wearing headgear.
We have also had two deaths because a bicyclist ASS-U-MEd he had a right-of-way instead of LOOKING!
And those bike lanes have only been up a few months!
I feel so bad for the drivers in the vehicles that killed them each.
How awful.
The bike lanes are deserted.
I guess word travels fast.

The second are pedestrian lanes in alleys where cars used to be able to legally get into their garages and garbage trucks could easily get to their trash bins.
Now drivers have to sneak into their own garages (yes, they could one day be cited for it, but we are only in the warning stage now).
And garbage trucks have to park a half block from dumpsters while their garbage men wheel the bin to the truck.
How long before the city demands we wheel our dumpsters into position just before then move them back (because it blocks 1/2 of the STREET) right after the pickup (which comes anytime of the day on Monday and Friday)?
Pedestrians would be met with a beautifully remade alley, now a grassy walk, topped by all of the phone and cable lines and electric lines for over 100 homes.
I haven’t yet seen any pedestrians in the walkway nearest our place.

Millions have been wasted on just these two projects.

When did Obama ever tell the truth?  Would we know it if he did?

Obama doesn’t want us to fall behind China in infrastructure, but he doesn’t mind us falling behind them everywhere else.

@liberalmann:

Yes, right back to where it should be- Constitutional rule of law and not the socialist sh*thole people like you want.

Too many bicyclists are completely oblivious to the fact that they are required to follow the same traffic laws as motor vehicles. I have seen far too many adult bicycle riders ignore traffic rules, some with almost suicidal behavior.

We need to re-institute Citizenship classes in our schools to teach children such rules they need to follow, personal responsibilities, respect for the persons and property of others and how to behave in polite society. Because it certainly isn’t being taught by parents or teachers now.