Zero Hedge

Signs that we were once a truly great nation are all around us.  Previous generations of Americans handed us the keys to the most magnificent domestic infrastructure that the world had ever seen, but now it is literally falling apart all around us.  Thousands of bridges are structurally deficient and there have already been some very high profile collapses.  Hundreds of thousands of miles of highways and roads in the United States are in very poor shape.  Aging sewer systems are leaking raw sewage all over the place, and children are being slowly poisoned by lead pipes that desperately need to be replaced.  The power grid is hopelessly overloaded and is extremely vulnerable.  Meanwhile, our ports, our dams, our subway systems, our bus terminals and our airports are crumbling right in front of our eyes.  The truth is that our nation’s infrastructure says a lot about who we are.  

 

So what does America’s crumbling infrastructure say about us?  Sadly, it says that we are a rusting, crumbling, decaying leftover from a better, more prosperous time.

When Joe Biden took office in 2021, his administration told us that “investment in U.S. infrastructure as a share of GDP has fallen by more than 40 percent since the 1960s”…

Public investment in U.S. infrastructure as a share of GDP has fallen by more than 40 percent since the 1960s. The World Economic Forum now ranks the United States 13th when it comes to the overall quality of infrastructure.

So Congress passed a bill that gave the Biden administration more than $100,000,000,000 to spend on fixing our infrastructure.

Honestly, I have no idea what they did with all that money.

In 2021, the official White House website was reporting that 45,000 bridges and 20 percent of our roads were in poor condition…

More than 45,000 U.S. bridges and 1 in 5 miles of roads are in poor condition, per the American Society of Civil Engineers. In 2007, the I-35 bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis collapsed during rush hour, killing 13 and injuring 121.

Well, fast forward a few years later and the Department of Transportation is still telling us that “over 40,000 bridges” are in poor condition…

The Department of Transportation considers 6.8% of the over 600,000 bridges it tracks and rates to be in “poor” condition. That doesn’t sound too bad on a percentage basis, but it’s over 40,000 bridges in total.

And it appears that the condition of our roads has actually gotten worse in many states.

For example, Consumer Reports says that almost half of all urban roads in the state of California are not currently in acceptable condition…

Despite an enormous yearly disbursement for highways that tops $21 billion, the Golden State manages to keep just a little more than half their urban roads in acceptable condition. However, this is an outsized job since, in addition to 840 miles of coastline, California boasts more miles of urban roads than any other state and has the second-highest mileage of rural roads in the country.

Data from the National Highway Administration shows California’s roads are the most traveled in the U.S., so it makes sense that the state also has the second-highest number of motor vehicle-related fatalities in the country.

Back in 2021, the Biden administration also made a big deal out of the fact that millions of Americans were getting their tap water through lead pipes…

Millions still get water from lead pipes, despite the fact that exposure to lead has irreversible health effects; in 2015, a state of emergency was declared in Flint, Michigan as citizens learned that their water supply contained toxic levels of lead.

So why didn’t the Biden administration fix this problem?

An article that was published late last year revealed that the EPA is estimating that “more than 9 million service lines” are still made out of lead…

The EPA estimates that more than 9 million service lines are made of lead, a neurotoxin that can cause nervous system damage, learning disabilities and other health problems, especially in children. If lead pipes corrode, as in the infamous case of Flint, Michigan, they can poison drinking water.

While no amount of lead exposure is safe, the federal rule now requires utilities to notify the public and improve corrosion treatment if lead in their water exceeds 10 parts per billion. Some homes in Syracuse, New York, recently tested at 70 parts per billion.

Our politicians are constantly telling us that they just don’t have enough money to get everything done.

Personally, I would really love to see exactly what the Biden administration spent more than 100 billion dollars of infrastructure money on.

Have you traveled through any of our airports lately?

Compared to other industrialized nations, they are a complete and utter joke.

Why can’t we have beautiful airports, modern subway systems, functional roads and bridges, and safe water coming out of our taps?

More tax revenue is collected in America than anywhere else in the world, and so we certainly deserve the best infrastructure.

When I bring up the topic of taxes, most people immediately think of the federal income tax.  But the truth is that there are literally dozens of different taxes that they use to extract wealth out of us…

• Building Permit Tax
• Capital Gains Tax
• CDL License Tax
• Cigarette Tax
• Corporate Income Tax
• Court Fines (indirect taxes)
• Dog License Tax
• Federal Income Tax
• Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
• Fishing License Tax
• Food License Tax
• Fuel Permit Tax
• Gasoline Tax
• Gift Tax
• Hunting License Tax
• Inheritance Tax
• IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
• Liquor Tax
• Local Income Tax
• Luxury Taxes
• Marriage License Tax
• Medicare Tax
• Payroll Taxes
• Property Tax
• Real Estate Tax
• Recreational Vehicle Tax
• Road Toll Booth Taxes
• Road Usage Taxes (Truckers)
• Sales Taxes
• School Tax
• Septic Permit Tax
• Service Charge Taxes
• Social Security Tax
• State Income Tax
• State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
• Telephone federal excise tax
• Telephone federal universal service fee tax
• Telephone federal, state and local surcharge taxes
• Telephone minimum usage surcharge tax
• Telephone recurring and non-recurring charges tax
• Telephone state and local tax
• Telephone usage charge tax
• Toll Bridge Taxes
• Toll Tunnel Taxes
• Traffic Fines (indirect taxation)
• Trailer Registration Tax
• Utility Taxes
• Vehicle License Registration Tax
• Vehicle Sales Tax
• Watercraft Registration Tax
• Well Permit Tax
• Workers Compensation Tax

When you take all forms of taxation into account, some Americans actually end up handing over more than 50 percent of their incomes each year.

So our politicians have no excuse for not fixing our infrastructure.

But even though they extract money from us in dozens of different ways, our infrastructure crisis just seems to keep getting worse.

In some areas of the country, roads that were once paved have actually been transformed into gravel roads because they are cheaper to maintain.

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Via https://www.zerohedge.com/political/truth-about-americas-crumbling-infrastructure