Steve Benen commented on the May 23 collapse of that interstate highway in Washington state so I wouldn’t have to again. (See my Daring to imagine the future from 2010.) Benen was reacting to a post at Business Insider by Joel Weisenthal pointing out that public construction spending in the U.S. has reached a 20-year low as a percentage of the overall economy.
“We have high unemployment, the need for economic stimulus, the ability to borrow at incredibly low rates, and systemic infrastructure needs — needs that will only grow more acute as time progresses,” Benen says “Indeed, it costs us more, not less, by waiting to tackle these projects that are going to have to be tackled eventually anyway.
Then why do we not tackle these project? All together now — There’s an assumption among many in Congress that all public investments are necessarily bad investments because, you know, ‘government spending’ is bad.”
Derek Thompson at The Atlantic makes much the same points. It is not only our bridges that are structurally deficient.
This article appears in May 23-29, 2013.
