THOUGHTS ON "COLLAPSE OF INFRASTRUCTURE IN SINGLE CHART"

Original post was entitled COLLAPSE OF INFRASTRUCTURE IN A SINGLE CHART.  (SEE CHART BELOW)

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While the government, through the Federal Reserve, is still feeding some stimulus money into the economy to assist in the recovery from the economic collapse of 2008, it is clearly going to banking institutions, which have recovered, not to general public needs like infrastructure redevelopment, employment stimulation, and underfunded social service agencies, where the needs are greatest.  This graph showing the steep drop-off in infrastructure spending since 2008 is striking.  It is easy to blame a recalcitrant Congress, but the bully pulpit of the president has been far too silent, all why overseas military activities continue unimpeded and newfound surveillance capabilities run rampant.  Our basic domestic infrastructure deserves a much higher priority than our government is giving it. 

COLLAPSE OF INFRASTRUCTURE IN A SINGLE CHART

FROM TRUTHDIG

See-ming Lee ??? SML (CC BY-SA 2.0)

After the “austerity fervor” of the 2010 elections, Washington has seen a “sudden, steep drop” in building and restoring the nation’s infrastructure. The trend is illustrated in a single chart from the investment research firm BCA Research.

After bobbing above and below $300 billion per year starting in the middle of George W. Bush’s presidency, government spending on construction projects not related to defense fell by roughly $60 billion in just a few years. The decline, writes Alan Pyke at Think Progress, is a result of Republicans blocking President Obama’s efforts to invest in badly needed repairs to infrastructure:

As the Financial Times’ Cardiff Garcia notes, the policy choices represented in the chart above aren’t compatible with a responsible effort to cut the country’s debt. Indeed, they’ll make things worse: “It’s also likely that much of the investment that has been forgone in the name of fiscal consolidation will have to be made eventually anyways — only it will be made when rates are higher, exacerbating the long-term fiscal outlook rather than improving it,” Garcia writes. In order to bring America’s infrastructure up to a reasonable level by 2020, Congress needs to be spending about $450 billion per year, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Infrastructure spending levels are tied fairly directly to economic performance. Continued underfunding in this arena over the coming years will cost businesses a trillion dollars in lost sales and cost the economy 3.5 million jobs. Infrastructure spending enjoys overwhelming support from voters. Democrats want to create a national infrastructure bank, something that would require just a $10 billion up-front investment but would provide an ongoing, sustainable funding stream for infrastructure projects.