TRUMP TAX BILL WOULD DEVASTATE U.S. INFRASTRUCTURE

…This is what happens when infrastructure issues are ignored 

 

The US currently has ~ 56,000 bridges of which many should be closed and declared obsolete.

 

If the Republican tax plan passes Congress, the short and long-term effects of the plan will be a massive drop in public investment.  Then there will be decades of declining spending on the nation’s infrastructure; on scientific research; on skills training and core government agencies.

 

So, what happened to Trump’s promise that we were going to fix America's roads, Interstates, bridges, airports, harbors, and schools?  The country can’t hold back investments forever, which the current tax proposal would do, and with this tax legislation, we are ushering in a very bleak future.

 

One must remember that as was stated by the GOP Senator from Florida, Marco Rubio, the Trump Tax Cuts are only Part I of their total plan.  When the deficits start becoming too large, which they always do, the Republicans running the government will declare an emergency and that they will also have to seriously cut spending.  That is GOP code for, “It’s time to cut Social Security and Medicare!”

 

Senator Rubio really pissed off a lot of his Republican colleagues’ when during a Sunday political interview he laid it all out.  He made it clear that this bogus tax plan is only Part I of the strategy, and going after entitlement spending is their Part II.  This has been the Nirvana of the Republican Party going back decades to when Ronald Reagan was elected president.

 

The two most important issues within the GOP talking points are: “TAX CUTS” and “CUTTING ENTITLEMENTS”.

 

But here is what the current tax bill will do to our nation. 

 

The tax bill is expected to add at least $1 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years.  This debt will be on the shoulders of our kids, kids.  Some experts think the real loss to federal revenue will actually be much higher.

 

If Congress doesn’t slash spending, automatic cuts will kick in unless Democrats and Republicans can agree to waive them. (And these two political parties haven’t talked to each other for years.)  Either way, the prospects for spending looks dire.  Potential cuts are already planned for the spending on roads and airports, training & apprenticeship programs, health-care research and public-health initiatives.  And that’s just among hundreds of other, smaller programs.

 

Gary Burtless of the Brookings Institution has pointed out that combined public investment by federal, state and local governments is already at its lowest point in six decades.

 

Here is why we do not need this bogus tax plan.

 

·       The World Bank has looked at 50 countries and found that the United States will have the largest un-met infrastructure needs over the next two decades.  Just look in any direction at our bridges, roads, airports, etc.  According to the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, the United States has almost 56,000 bridges with structural problems (about 1,900 of which are on interstate highways), and these are crossed 185 million times a day.

 

·       An industry report says that in 1977 the federal government provided 63% of the country’s total investment in infrastructure.  But the government provided only 9% by 2014.  Here’s another disgusting issue for you to digest.  There’s so much congestion in America’s largest rail hub, Chicago, that it takes longer for a freight train to pass through the city than it takes to get from Chicago to Los Angeles.  This is according to Building America’s Future, a public interest group.

 

·       A recent report on science notes that for the first time since World War II, private funding for basic research now exceeds federal funding.  Research and development topped 10% of the national budget in the mid-1960s; it is now less than 4%.  And the Senate’s version of the tax bill removed a crucial tax credit that had encouraged corporate spending on research, though the House-Senate compromise version will hopefully keep the credit.

 

·       All this is happening in an environment in which other countries, from South Korea to Germany to China, are ramping up their investments in all of these areas. A recent study found that China is on track to surpass the United States as the world leader in biomedical research spending.

 

The reality is that with the government parties in such a divisive level, the business of the government is just not getting done.  It all became very bad after Barack Obama became president and the Republicans decided that they would not work with the new president, nor anyone else in the Democratic party.  And that attitude of a lack of cooperation has only gotten worse.

 

In the early 1980’s, it was observed by foreign politicians and journalists that came to the United States, so many articles and comments were written about how well the US government functioned.  Back then, the rest of the world would make comments about how bad their own versions of their IRS Agency and the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) performed, when compared to those same agencies in the US.  These US agencies today are amongst many in America that are basically skeletons of what they were back then.

 

The US Census Bureau is a case in point.  This bureau is preparing to go digital and undertake a new national tally, but it is hamstrung by insufficient budgets and it has had to cancel several much-needed census tests. The FAA lags behind equivalent agencies in countries such as Canada and it has also been delayed in upgrading its technology because of funding lapses. And the list goes on and on.

 

Decades of congressional micromanagement and underfunding have seriously taken their toll.

 

But there are major problems that go beyond underfunding.

 

The costs of rebuilding American infrastructure are extremely high.  During the Depression, World War II and much of the Cold War, a sense of crisis and competition focused America’s attention.  It also created a bipartisan urgency to get things done. However, today, at a time when other countries have surpassed the United States in many of these areas, America has fallen into extreme political partisanship.  Those in government have taken on a negative attitude that is starving the country of the essential investments it needs for growth.

 

Those who vote for this tax bill, probably the worst piece of major legislation in a generation, unfortunately as FDR had said, If it passes "It will live on in infamy”, as the country slowly breaks down.

 

As of today, only the public’s realization of the dire position that the nation’s government is in, that is what it will take to get the situation to be turned around.  Right now, the public's attention is not on the nation's infrastructure.

 

Is this the beginning of the end of the greatest experiment in democratic government? 

 

 

Mr. Putin is counting on it.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2017