This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture as part of the Making It In America project. I am a Fellow with CAF.
Dot: No net job gains since 2000. 8 million jobs lost in the recession. Never mind jobs for the 86,000 new people entering the labor force every month...
"congested highways, overflowing sewers, and corroding bridges" were creating a "looming crisis that jeopardizes our nation's prosperity and our quality of life."
Dot: From a recent NY Times story on our country's water systems,
Today, a significant water line bursts on average every two minutes somewhere in the country, according to a New York Times analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data.
. . . State and federal studies indicate that thousands of water and sewer systems may be too old to function properly.
[. . .] "There's a lot of evidence that people are getting sick," he added. "But because everything is out of sight, no one really understands how bad things have become."
Connect the dots.
Ten million jobs needed. Ten million jobs that need doing.
It's called the infrastructure deficit. Right around 1981 we stopped improving the country's infrastructure and even started to defer maintaining it. We started "living off the seed corn." Now it is all catching up to us.
I'll be writing about infrastructure. Boring. Until it isn't.
Workers were repairing corroded joints on Minnesota's busiest bridge when it collapsed into the Mississippi River yesterday, killing at least four people and leaving more than 20 missing, state officials said.
... As many as 50 cars plunged into the river along with the six-story structure, authorities and eyewitnesses said.