Infrastructure Projects: Create New Jobs

In our 2009 book America At Risk we proposed the creation of national plan to rebuild America's crumbling infrastructure that would be a jobs creator and a unifying public-private national project. The idea for our proposal was based on a 2005 report by the American Society of Civil Engineers in which they evaluated the condition of public infrastructure in fifteen areas and assigned a grade to each (A=Exceptional, B=Good, C=Mediocre, D=Poor, F=Failure, I=Incomplete. The reported grades were not good: ten areas received grades of D, D+, or D-; four areas received grades in the C range; one area was an Incomplete. No area of roads, bridges, public parks, schools, and so on, received a grade of A or B. When the Society repeated their study in 2013, there were 9 areas with a D grade, 3 Cs, and one B. So there is slight improvement in the condition of public infrastructure, but nothing that would make one cheerful.

These reports on the quality of America's infrastructure are not good, and all Americans would be potential beneficiaries from bringing our aging and deteriorating infrastructure into the twenty-first century.The cost to rebuild infrastructure is very high and it is probably one of the barriers to getting it on the agenda for Congress and the President. The Obama administration frequently talked about the need for a national infrastructure project, but it never moved beyond the talking stage. It has resurfaced as item in the new Trump administration and it has been discussed as a public-private initiative that might make the costs more manageable. We think it is time for a new moon mission project, but this time we need to land on earth!