Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Progressive Christian
5. Bridges

5. Bridges

Last updated on: June 24, 2012 at 3:33 pm by Fred Clark

5. Bridges 2012-06-24T15:33:44-04:00 Fred Clark

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Want to read something scary? Click over to the Federal Highway Administration’s National Bridge Inventory site and do a little reading on the state of America’s bridges.

The good news is that most of them are in pretty good shape. More than half. The bad news is that some of our bridges are in pretty bad shape. How many? Try 149,647 rated structurally deficient. And most of those are still in use.

Drive for a half an hour and you’ll probably go over one. Or under one. Which is where the scary part comes in. Reassure yourself that the concrete under your car or over your head is probably only a little bit structurally deficient. It may be “equal to present minimum criteria,” or, better yet, “somewhat better than minimum adequacy to tolerate being left in place as is.”

Or it may be “basically intolerable requiring high priority of replacement.”

You can search for specific bridges on your commute in the conveniently disturbing database at nationalbridges.com. That’s where I learned that my commute includes passage of only one “basically intolerable” bridge near West Chester, Pa. The good news there is PennDOT is repairing that bridge right now, using Recovery Act funding. The less good news is that the bridge was never closed. The rest of my commute involves several bridges that are in fine shape and several more of “minimum adequacy.”

Try saying that out loud in a reassuring sentence: “Don’t worry kids, this bridge is structurally deficient, but it has the minimum tolerable adequacy.” Not very reassuring, is it?

America has 149,647 such bridges.

So America has a lot of work to do on its bridges. As it just so happens, we also have 14.6 million people unable to find a job. So having a lot of work to do just now is a Good Thing.

As mentioned above, the Recovery Act did put thousands of Americans to work rebuilding bridges (among other things). Without that stimulus, according to the best estimate so far — from Alan S. Blinder and Mark Zandi (.pdf) — the Recovery Act and the steps taken by the Fed and through TARP probably added around 2.7 million jobs and prevented the loss of 8.5 million. That’s awesome. Yay for that.

But, not to seem ungrateful, we’re not done yet. We still have, as noted, 14.6 million people in need of work. And we still have a great deal of urgently needed work for them to do. So while I very much appreciate that we’re not mired in what Blinder and Zandi say would otherwise have been “Great Depression 2.0,” and the Obama administration deserves high praise for that, we shouldn’t yet be satisfied because we’re not yet done.

(Think of it this way: Blinder & Zandi paint a portrait of the Obama administration as a heroic fireman who rescued 40 children from a burning school. True enough, but what B&Z don’t mention is that the school is still burning and there are still dozens more children trapped inside. So maybe we should be addressing that before we head off to the parade and the key-to-the-city ceremony.)

So the experience of the Recovery Act proves this isn’t just theory. Spend billions on needed bridge repair and we could easily create many, many more jobs. Tens of thousands certainly. Hundreds of thousands possibly. Perhaps millions.

The scope and scale of the work needed — 149,647 structurally deficient bridges — aligns with the scope and scale of our current need for work. If we chose to do so, we could fix all of these bridges in 2011 — every single one — by putting our army of otherwise unemployed Americans to work on the project.

Again of course it’s not quite that simple — unemployed teachers, policemen, salesmen and Web designers don’t have the skills that would easily translate into bridge-building. That would require a great deal of training. Hiring, say, a former car dealer to rebuild bridges might not be the most efficient way to get bridges rebuilt. But it would still be infinitely more efficient than the current non-plan of not hiring that former car dealer to do anything.

That’s a huge point, central to this whole discussion. Massive unemployment is an inefficient and expensive waste. It’s a waste of money, time and human capacity. Getting the unemployed off the sidelines to do anything of real use can never be as inefficient or unproductive as leaving those millions of people idle.

Let’s consider again the objection of deficit spending. The so-called deficit hawks object to repairing structurally deficient bridges because they say the government cannot afford to borrow money to do so — even at the low, low rates at which the government can now borrow it. Maintenance on these bridges must therefore, in the name of “fiscal responsibility,” be deferred indefinitely. This is nonsense — a dishonest trick that pretends to balance budgets by pretending that the cost of maintenance can be ignored, and that the cost of ignoring it can further be ignored, and so on. It’s a gimmick, a scam, a lie.

Deferred maintenance on these bridges is a liability, an expense that must be accounted for. It means we owe money to the infrastructure we are allowing to languish in disrepair — with interest on that debt ballooning the longer we put it off. Actually fixing the bridges pays that debt.

I am here suggesting that — let’s pick a big, round number — $300 billion be spent, immediately, on repairing America’s 149,647 deficient bridges.

That money will come from future tax revenue to repay current bonds. Rational citizens and shareholders have always respected, supported and relied on this form of borrowing — bonds for capital improvements. It has always been viewed as a responsible and necessary measure to ensure future health and growth.

But the so-called deficit hawks are pretending that bonds for capital improvements are unprecedented and unheard of. They claim that spending this $300 billion to repair crumbling bridges and put people back to work would entail “saddling our grandchildren with more debt.” They seem to think that “our grandchildren” will be far more grateful if we, instead, saddle them with crumbling bridges and the inability to travel 20 miles in any direction safely.

These supposed deficit hawks are also ignoring the erupting volcano in the room — the fact that 14.6 million Americans currently are not paying taxes due to being unable to find work. That unpaid revenue is a debt that really will be passed along to our grandchildren and that cost in current and future debt far exceeds the price tag for putting these millions back to work, immediately. It’s also an expense that — unlike money spent on bridges or sewers or water mains — buys nothing in return. The deficit hawks seem to prefer losing money to spending money. That’s no way to pay the bills or to balance the budget.

In other words, if we don’t get busy committing current and future tax revenues to putting people back to work and repairing our derelict infrastructure, then there won’t be any current or future tax revenues to argue about.

Future generations will be grateful to inherit a functioning infrastructure and a functioning economy, even if that also means inheriting their share of what that costs. The alternative — bequeathing them massive unemployment, crumbling infrastructure and the lingering austerity of a lost decade — is something future generations would be unlikely to forgive.

class warfare

infrastructure

work

Previous Post

August 21, 2010

4. The Grid

Next Post

August 25, 2010 Charleston and Billings

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category class warfare evangelicals Iraq Left Behind Mammon music Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which letter of Paul is addressed to a slave owner about a runaway slave?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Philemon Colossians Galatians Titus