Dire need to fix roads and bridges
As a logistics professional since 1972, infrastructure is a concept I can appreciate. Infrastructure serves as the skeletal and circulatory system to the economic body. Our highways, bridges and levees function as the organs allowing the circulation of commerce fueling the world's largest economy.
Today our economic body is silently dying from osteoporosis and hardening of the arteries.
Folks outside of the logistics community only realize this when disaster strikes, such as when New Orleans is swept away along with inadequate levees from a hurricane, or drivers are dropped to a watery grave by a crumbling and neglected Minneapolis bridge.
America's infrastructure has languished from neglect since the last great infrastructure project, the Eisenhower administration's Interstate Highway System over 50 years ago.
Today a federal commission calls for investment of $225 billion annually for the next 50 years to maintain and improve infrastructure. Sadly, we currently provide less than $90 billion annually and many vital projects are shamefully delayed while Congress struggles to appropriate even that much.
There is long historical precedent for prioritizing infrastructure.
In 1808, President Jefferson championed a national roads and canals project.
In 1908, President Teddy Roosevelt promoted electrical generation. Twenty-five years later, his cousin, President Franklin Roosevelt, created the Works Progress Administration which helped raise the human spirit as it did our economy, rebuilding infrastructure.
The aforementioned Interstate Highway System was a concept Eisenhower lifted from a defeated Germany in 1945. Touring the Nazi-built Autobahn, Eisenhower realized America needed a world class highway system to develop our economy and promote military logistical support.
Next January we need a wise doctor in the White House who will write a strong prescription for infrastructure health.
The economic body is not dying from old age. It is dying from neglect.
Walt Zlotow
Glen Ellyn