Report: Nation's Infrastructure Crumbling (falls from D+ to a big fat D)

[rodeodance]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=513&ncid=718&e=3&u=/ap/20050309/ap_on_go_ot/aging_infrastructure
Report: Nation's Infrastructure Crumbling

The report card: http://www.asce.org/reportcard

45 minutes ago




By LESLIE MILLER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Crowded schools, traffic-choked roads and transit cutbacks are eroding the quality of American life, according to an analysis by civil engineers that gave the nation's infrastructure an overall grade of D.

A report by the American Society of Civil Engineers released Wednesday assessed the four-year trend in the condition of 12 categories of infrastructure, including roadways, bridges, drinking water systems, public parks, railroads and the power grid.

The overall grade slipped from the D-plus given to the infrastructure in 2001 and 2003.......

[Stand and Fight]

1. Put two and two together...

These two lines are especially telling:
"...Nation's infrastructure an overall grade of D."
"...A report by the American Society of Civil Engineers released Wednesday assessed the four-year trend..."

[Dhalgren]

3. Is it really in the rich people's self-interest

to turn the US into a third-world country? Will this actually make the rich richer? I ask this because this "Impoverishment of America" (sounds like a Murrow news program) is willful and guided, but why?

[aquart]

10. They aren't really very far-seeing.

And they seem incapable of grasping the consequences of an action.

[Cooley Hurd]

13. Re: your PM

When you put someone on ignore, you don't give them a chance to rebut. Sorry my gifs are causing an issue with your eyesight (and sorry I had to address it here, but you left no other option)...

[shantipriya]

11. Rich people & Infrastructure

Rich people live in exclusive neighborhoods and/or towns and they rarely use the public schools,infrastructure ,etc.
This is the most selfish society in the world.

[Dhalgren]

16. Good points.

I had foolishly thought along the lines of a "shared society", but you are right; to the rich, most of us are "untouchables"...

[Journeyman]

22. The rich have their own supply of water? . . .

Travel on their own roads and tap into a private power grid? Wow. They are very different from you and I.

[siliconefreak]

23. well, sort of...

Don't forget that there are LOTS of wealthy people in the inner cities, especially L.A., San Francisco, Chicago, and New York. Of course, these are also usually liberal-minded people who are on our side anyway. I guess there's not enough of them to counter-balance the suburban/ranch Bush-wannabees.

[SharonAnn]

25. In third-world countries, and even some higher-rated ones, they

live behind walls around their home and yard. Hire security guards to be on watch during the night, and travel with a bodyguard.

It's not a fun way to live. I visits my in-laws in Central America and South America occasionally and it's very different. You have to be on guard all the time, even at traffic lights and anyplace where your car is stopped. Certainly anywhere you are out in public can be the place for a robbery, a kidnapping, or worse.

When they visit here they can't get over our open yards around our houses, yards with no walls around them.

[tom_paine]

21. No it isn't in their best interest, but they still can't stop themselves

The rush of Power, of false Superiority, of crushing your inferiors further beneath the heel...making those Filthy Little Nobodies KNOW THEIR PLACE.

It is a powerful human drive which goes back to the beginning of time. Sure it is foolish and shortsigted, also clasically human.

Remember the experiments with the monkey and the cocaine? They put a monkey in a cage with two dispensers. Food and Cocaine. If I recall correctly, that monkey kept getting coked up to the point of starvation...then he died.

They cannot stop themselves. They love getting richer at no cost to themselves by looting the money of the Filthy Little Nobodies. Even better is when the Filthy Little Nobodies can be made to love their Defrauders, their Punishers, their Oppressors. Every charlatan, con man cult leader, and corrupt CEO knows what a powerful rush that is.

In any case, they might be able to intellectualize the issue, but put that dish of Coke (or in this case, "Free Money") and they will start snorting it up, regardless of the long-term consequences.

[oasis]

27. We might as well look like a banana republic. (eom)

[ananda]

2. Well..

Well, that's what you get when the rich don't pay their fair share of anything....

Sue

[Zynx]

6. The problem is more that almost everyone's taxes are too low

Middle class on up, the rate of taxation the US pays for what it has for infrastructure and what it expects is stupidly low.

And that's not even touching on the entitlement programs.

Basically, if you want to live like a Western European country, you need to tax like one.

[ixion]

14. no, the problem is waste, IMO

the government spends billions of dollars on throw-away (and illegal, unethical) projects. That money could be put to good use shoring up the infrastructure.

Most of the taxes go into the military industrial complex... cutting spending there could solve the problem immediately.

[ret5hd]

4. we'll all have something to do when...

the next depression comes and we elect a democratic president and he starts the 'NEW New Deal'.

[Freedom_from_Chains]

5. Well that would comport

with the overall collaspe of American society which we are currently experiencing.

[GOPBasher]

7. We have no money to fix infrastructure. We spend it all on the

military. ARRRRGGHHHHHH!!!!!! :mad:

[HereSince1628]

8. But its pointless to invest in these things, the rapture is coming...

Besides, when it gets SOOOOO bad, we'll do like other 2nd and 3rd world nations and BEG Halliburton to privatize all these things.

Look at this as an opportunity to become a member of the ownership society. You're gonna need a place to invest those retirement dollars anyway. You really might be able to buy the Brooklyn bridge.

[hatrack]

9. But the Iraqi infrastructure improves every day!

Oh, you mean they blew it up? Oh, never mind.

[RT Atlanta]

12. Meanwhile...

We're blowing more than $1B a day in Iraq an elsewhere...

GOT WMD?

What a fucking joke!

Think how far that $ could go here at home with schools, infrastructure, feeding, clothing and housing our own poor.

[leftchick]

15. freedom isn't free....

had to say it... :puke:

[RT Atlanta]

17. Then, let "them" pay for it...

I agree with LC 100% - that's the mentality that we're up against.

[NVMojo]

18. The white supremicists and their followers who are running the White House

are spending all of our infrastructure money invading, killing and dominating other countries ...soon they will totally dominate this one once they finally slap the shackles on our ankles and wrists and hook us up to the proverbial plow forever.

[Julius Civitatus]

29. IT'S PART OF THE BIG PICTURE, PEOPLE

Remember the words of Republican ideologue Grover Norquist:

"My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."

- Grover Norquist

They are letting the system crumble, basically bankrupting every aspect of our system of government to destroy it and reconstruct it under their "libertarian," states-rights, pro-privileged minority utopia.

That's what they are doing.

[BiggJawn]

19. We have a "World-Class" sewer system here...

THIRD world, that is...Open sewers and everything!

http://www.lafayettejc.com/news20050309/200503090local_news1110345518.shtml

"Leaking sewer line deemed an emergency"
(snip)
Crews have been at the site around the clock since the break was discovered near Elliott Ditch east of Poland Hill Road, said city engineer Opal Kuhl.

"Once we got in, we found out it was a lot larger than we first suspected," said Brad Talley, superintendent of the city's water pollution control department.

The concrete sewer main is so old and corroded that as crews dug to attempt a fix, more and more of the pipe crumbled, Kuhl said.
(snip)
Bowen Engineering will replace an estimated 354 feet of the aging pipe with a new 36-inch ductile iron pipe, Talley said. He expects the work to be done by the end of the week. Renovations for the 40-year-old sewer line are about 10 years overdue, Kuhl said.

So wonder how they found out? some kid come home and say "Hey Ma! Lookit the neat balloons I found floating in the ditch!"

[TrogL]

20. It's time for Keynes

The economy is at a standstill. The infrastructure sucks. It's time to stop the war in Iraq and use that money to rebuild the infrastruction, putting a whole bunch of people to work in the process. This jobs will spin off other jobs.

At least that's the theory. In practice, it seems to work a whole lot more successfully than "trickle down".

[moondust]

24. If Al Gore had been elected

and actually taken office a lot of the infrastructure would probably be fixed by now and we wouldn't be wasting people and vast fortunes invading other countries.

Doubly screwed.

[jefferson_dem]

26. Never mind that...how those bridges and schools in Baghdad comin' along?

:grr:

[Sabriel]

28. Honey, the Visigoths are here!

Someone opened the gates so they could get into the city more easily....

It's news like this...everyday...that makes me regret having children who will have to deal with the repercussions of these evil morons' acts.

[paineinthearse]

30. Take a look at the press release from the civil engineering group

Posted yesterday in GENERAL forum.

PM me if you can't find it and I'll search too.

[Massacure]

31. I read somewhere that it would cost 2 trillion dollars

to repair and upgrade all the infrastructure in the United States. That article only says 1.6 though.

[Moderator]

32. kick to combine

[chlamor]

33. Report: U.S. Infrastructure Deteriorating, $1.6 Trillion Needed

U.S. Infrastructure Deteriorating, Report Finds

 Top Stories - Reuters

By Alan Elsner

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. roads, bridges, sewers and dams are crumbling and need a $1.6 trillion overhaul but prospects for improvement are grim, the American Society of Civil Engineers said in a report issued on Wednesday.

The group's first report since 2001 looked at 15 categories of public infrastructure, assigning each a letter grade. Overall, the nation's infrastructure received a D, down from a D+ four years ago.

<snip>

The society estimated the cost of bringing infrastructure to an acceptable level at $1.6 trillion over five years from government and the private sector. The report was compiled by 24 top engineers who analyzed published material and surveyed 2,000 engineers in the field.

<snip>

The nation's drinking water system alone needed a public investment of $11 billion a year to replace facilities, comply with regulations and meet future needs. But federal funding reached less than 10 percent of this amount. As a result, aging wastewater systems were discharging billions of gallons of untreated sewage into surface waters each year, the report said.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&ncid=564&e=1&u=/nm/20050309/ts_nm/life_infrastructure_dc

[tridim]

34. Wasn't Bush's tax cut for the super wealthy about 1.6 trillion?

[lovuian]

35. Instead of giving our people jobs Our Money is going to Iraq

Bush goes down in the Books as a Harding clone!!!