US INFRASTRUCTURE & THE GOP ARE LIKE OIL & WATER

…..The I-35 bridge that collapsed in 2007 in Minneapolis.

America’s infrastructure is now only slightly above other 3^rd world nations.

Being that the US is now listed as 16^th in the world for our crumbling infrastructure, is anyone curious why our Republican politicians are so timid about doing anything for fixing our crumbling roads, dams, bridges, and schools? 

 

Can anyone explain why it’s been over a decade since we’ve had a federal long-term transportation funding bill which could fix all these problems?  Instead, we’ve had over 10 short-term transportation bills, one which was only for a 2 day extension to another short term bill. 

For many years, this was always a non-partisan issue.  Now it takes a total catastrophe to even get some short-term attention from the congressional Republicans.

In fact, the British comedian John Oliver did a 20 minute program on America’s poor infrastructure, and even though it was very funny, it makes a very big and important point. 

This country is in big infrastructure trouble, and there will be some very big disasters if something isn’t done soon.  Also, the fact is, it’s been so long for our dams and bridges that even if we started tomorrow, there will still be disasters like there was when the I-35 Interstate Highway bridge collapsed in Minneapolis in 2007.  And this time it may not be just a bridge.  It could be one of our nation’s dams that is over 50 years old and where it hasn’t been inspected since it was built.  In fact in the state of Alabama, where there are more than 400 dams, both big and small, and this state has zero dam inspectors.

Now, I had previously reported that the Republicans in Congress will not vote for emergency help or infrastructure support for states that don’t vote Republican.  In other words, with a Republican Congress, if a Blue state such as New Jersey has a natural or an infrastructure disaster, it takes the Republicans to not vote in order for the Democrats to get an emergency bill approval for a Blue state.  It must be noted that the Republican party is also dominated by southern Red states.

The problem is so big, that both Texas senators, Cornyn and Cruz, made a big deal when there was an emergency funding bill for New York and New Jersey due to Hurricane Sandy.  They refused to vote for the bill.  But now, with the tragic flood deaths due to the most rain ever covering all of Texas and Oklahoma, both Texas senators are very red faced as they plead for emergency support for their state.

In addition to all this, you may not be aware that it’s the federal gasoline tax that provides the most funding for the transportation highway repair budget. 

 

Well, recently C-SPAN did a 1 hour phone-in survey asking the general public if the gas tax, that hasn’t been raised for over 10 years, should it be raised today?  Even though the listening public was made aware of how important the gas tax is, not one caller in the one hour survey said “yes” the gas tax should be raised.  Now if gas taxes are the #1 way to fund infrastructure building and repairs, needless to say, raising the gas tax is very important.  But it’s also very unpopular with the general public. 

As I said, our infrastructure is in big trouble.

So, what is the Republican’s reasons for not supporting our nation’s infrastructure?

The answer is, while Republicans continue to refuse to raise the revenue necessary to fund infrastructure spending, their latest approach is called, “Starve the Beast 2.0”.  In other words,  the Republican will hold hostage any and all necessary infrastructure spending for cuts to “other government spending”.  

To understand this, you have to understand the crucial Republican need for infrastructure spending to be treated just like the nation’s "debt ceiling."  

For most Republicans, the hundreds of billions to trillions of unmet infrastructure spending represents a massive, annual golden opportunity to extort major cuts to social, regulatory, non-defense spending.  That includes: Food Stamps, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.  

In addition, President Obama today wants to spend federal money on infrastructure and jobs for infrastructure repairs.  But if Obama wants it, the GOP doesn’t, no matter how this looks outside the party.

The latest Amtrak derailment is a beautiful example of what will continue to happen if the Republicans retain control of the House and the Senate.  That transportation accident would not have happened if the transportation department was not operating on a Republican sponsored short-term funding bill.

But this isn’t all the reasons for why the GOP is against infrastructure repairs.

Republicans refuse to fund infrastructure spending because their larger goal is to repeal or weaken labor and environmental laws associated with large scale construction projects.  

 

As an example, while you may be rightly worried that your local bridge is structurally unsound, Republicans are much more concerned with repealing laws like the Davis-Bacon Act.  This is a 1931 FDR New Deal law which requires payment of the local prevailing wages on all public works projects for laborers and mechanics. Repealing this employment protection law is a much larger Republican priority than repairing any specific bridge or tunnel.  

The conservative Republican, Utah Senator Mike Lee explained the priorities of his "infrastructure proposal".  “The Davis-Bacon Act exemplifies how big government hurts the people it purports to help, gives unfair advantages to favored special interests, and squeezes the middle class,” said Senator Lee.  This is incorrect.

Per Senator Lee, “Forcing the American citizens to subsidize labor unions in this way artificially inflates the costs of construction projects to repair and improve our national infrastructure. This is unfair, and unsustainable, and costing taxpayers billions of dollars every year.”

 

Per Senator Lee, his “Davis-Bacon Repeal Act” supposedly removes these government-imposed obstacles to economic opportunity facing low-skilled workers and returns wasted taxpayer dollars back into the hands of the American people. Yeah right! 

 

Senator Lee will offer the bill as an amendment to legislation that addresses the funding of our nation's highway and transportation systems.  (What the Davis-Bacon Act actually did for the last 84 years was make sure the federal construction projects’ workers were paid fair wages, not low construction wages like those paid in China and Vietnam.)

In sum, the question of why we cannot enact needed, common-sense infrastructure spending is because of the Republican party’s hyper-partisan approach.  As they continue to engaged in their destructive “Starve the Beast” agenda, as they privatize public infrastructure and promote more cuts in the nation’s economy, while they are ideologically opposed to labor and environmental laws, we and the country will all continue to just be screwed by the GOP.  

 

It's disgusting that the greatest nation in the world is rated as 16th in national infrastructure.

Copyright G.Ater  2015