For the second day in a row, there is no power in the building which houses my employer, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (the CBPP website is still up, though). Apparently, a number of buildings in that part of town are out. PEPCO, our local utility, says we'll be back on at noon today, but we'll see.
OK, so let's get this straight. We've got major infrastructure deficits in this country, including an electricity grid that's demonstrably unreliable. I get that systems come down, but a city block...for two days! That's a little scary.
And my situation is, of course, a microcosm of a larger, known problem. Check out the 2009 Report Card from the American Society of Civil Engineers:
Aviation D
Bridges CDams D
Energy D+
Levees D-
Public Parks and Recreation C-Rail C-
Roads D-
Schools D
Solid Waste C+
Transit D
Wastewater D-
America's Infrastructure GPA: D
Estimated 5 Year Investment Need: $2.2 Trillion
There's the demand. Where's the supply? Um... how about 20+ million un- or underemployed, including construction workers, whose unemployment rate is about 18%.
I know... show me the money. These are public goods, and thus private industry will underinvest in them. Now, I know we're in the midst of spending-cut frenzy, but infrastructure investment -- that's "investment" as in: do this right and it boosts the economy's productive capacity -- has historically been one area where partisans agree.
In that regard, it was unfortunate to read Rep. Eric Cantor in this AM's paper get this wrong: "The president talked about a need for us to continue to quote-unquote invest from Washington's standpoint, and for a lot of us that's code for more Washington spending, something that we can't afford right now."
No, sir -- with respect, that is not secret code. The president is right, and to ignore needed public investments based on anti-spending ideology is to create an infrastructure deficit much more worrisome and damaging to the long-term economic well-being of this nation than the federal budget deficit.
Plus, I kinda need to get back in the office one of these days.
This post originally appeared at Jared Bernstein's On The Economy blog.
We stroke ourselves over being 'exceptional', but in fact, we've accepted mediocrity - except in our military might.
It's sad what this nation is fast becoming. What will it take to turn things around?
One is the use of the lowest bidder concept. This is the government agency issues a set of parameters for a group of construction companies to meet and the company that submits the lowest bid wins the contract. You get what you pay for is the result as many roads, bridges and other public works projects end up crumbling before their time. There is very little innovation in these projects. Then, in order to keep cost overruns down and maximize profits, shortcuts are taken which puts the public in peril with substandard results.
Another problem is the back room deals and handshakes between contractors and politicians. I live in Cuyahoga County Ohio (Cleveland) and we are in the midst of a huge county government scandal that exposes this conflict of interest. Bids were rigged so that they go to friends and donors of the politicians in power.
So we need to reform our system of bidding and work on construction projects and allocate money to adequately rebuild our nation.
"Crumbling infrastructure"= road to nowhere=another way to pay off democrats special interests=bullet trains to nowhere.
That's why.
Workers available to do the work.
Broken economic system that is unable to pair the two together.
How can you say that was the purpose when we all know how the 2010 election turned out. Care much about reality?
Then your discussion of infrastructure struck me as an incredible opportunity for job creation for Americans for whom the rarefied fields aren't attainable. We need a hybrid approach to the future economy that includes excellence in innovation and dedication to the infrastructure required to empower it. All Americans have a seat at that table.
We need a full court press on infrastructure revitalization and it should start immediately. If we can get idle Americans into jobs improving infrastructure we can revitalize the economy in the short term as well as the long-term.
Congressman Cantor might not recognize the economic benefits of infrastructure revitalization, but the American people can't wait until he does. We must press on, now!.
Over the past two or three decades, both major political parties of the US congress decided to destroy our manufacturing and the associated technology human database capability with “FREE TRADE” legislation and treaties. The US congress has also destroyed the US creative capabilities and the database of technically oriented people that won WWII and created the economic power that the USA enjoyed for a few decades after WWII, because the technical innovation, product development and design capabilities and the associated jobs went overseas with the manufacturing capability.
The USA is no longer the World Technology leader that the USA was until maybe the early 1970's.
Asian countries are now are the technology leaders.
The best and brightest students in the USA have pursued the more financially rewarding non-scientific careers, instead of educations that might have created technically innovative products that people in foreign countries might purchase.
Economics is a creation of the imagination of man, not a fixture of the natural world and it can be forced to adapt to new conditions as required.