No Money available to fix Bridges

No money to fix our bribges/ but money available for Iraq war


I came home yesterday evening turned on the TV, and was faced with the horrific pictures of the I35 Bridge in Minneapolis.
My heart goes out to all of those who lost loved ones, or were injured in the frightening collapse. Each of us has a mental list of things that scare us, for many of us, this now yet another concern to add to the list.

We have been told for years that the US Highway system is over 50 years old. We have been told that nothing lasts forever, and that for many years we have been “Putting band-aids” on serious structural flaws. But is the bridges that pose the greatest danger, as well as per mile, the greatest cost to replace.

Since Wednesday, we have all learned a lot more about the dangers that ageing bridges represent.
More than 70,000 bridges across the country are rated structurally deficient like the I-35W bridge , and engineers estimate repairing them all would take at least a generation and cost more than $188 billion.

For year we were told that that figure was too large to deal with, that now was not the time. In fact many just sort of threw up their hands, the way we do with stories of Social Security or Medicare running out of money. The idea is if you just don’t talk about it, maybe it will go away.

How are we ever going to come-up with $188 Billion.? Where can the US find those kinds of funds?

I have a good place to start the search…

Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, puts the final figure of the US involvement in the Iraq war at a shocking $1 trillion to $2 trillion dollars. This figure includes $500 billion in direct costs for the war and occupation and up to $300 billion in future health care costs for wounded troops.
Linda Bilmes, at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, has also projected the war’s costs, and has arrived at a similar estimate. Granted, these figures seem on the high side, but when was the last time anything government did came in at the “Low side” of an estimate.

Yes, $188 Billion is a big chunk of change, and of course it will run dramatically over budget. And replacing the $3.1 cut last year from federal education budget, and doubling the funds spent on “Home land security,” will require the reallocation of resources. If we add to that, a manned mission to mars reducing the number of people without health insurance, the truth is, it will still let come close to the costs associated with this war.

Just a little something to keep in mind the next time you drive over a bridge.

UrbanBlog
Larry@urbaninsuranceagency.com