Those Crumbling Roads and Bridges

Eli,

I'm sure it's just coincidence, but when stimulus was banned from the White House vocabulary, except to talk about how successful it was, it was replaced with the idea that America suffers from an infrastructure deficit, an infrastructure gap. We suffer from crumbling highways and bridges. So we need to spend money. But not as stimulus. It is needed to repair our decrepit infrastructure.

Here's Obama in late November of 2011

President Barack Obama said the deterioration of the nation’s highways, bridges, airports and ports is costly to U.S. business and threatens future economic growth.

Obama traveled to the banks of the Potomac River in Washington and an aging landmark bridge in need of repair to prod Congress to act on a provision of his jobs plan to put $60 billion into infrastructure repairs. He also announced plans to speed up grants and funding for surface transportation projects.

It seems to be a rather common theme. So prevalent it's a wonder we are able to get to work every day.

I was rummaging through the Statistical Abstract of the US today, on another project, and found this:

Yea, it was a head scratcher. When George Bush left office, the percent of deficient and obsolete bridges was much lower than when he entered office. In only a few short years since Obama became President we now had crumbling infrastructure that was jeopardizing our economy. Thanks Obama. 

Here's Table 1091 just for grins.

Yea, another head scratcher. Spending on highways has more than doubled since 1990 and we still have crumbling roads and bridges. 

Bill.