The Infrastructural Divide

"Increasingly, infrastructure investment and mass transportation are framed by the liberal-conservative divide, turning relatively straightforward municipal issues into cultural and ideological battles. With our transportation infrastructure literally falling apart — the American Society of Civil Engineers puts the repair bill at $2.2 trillion — the United States faces an interesting dilemma.

A thriving economy is desperately needed to increase wealth, decrease unemployment and wean people off federal entitlement programs fiscal conservatives hate. A dependable and indirect method of stimulating the economy is driving down the cost and energy required to move goods and services by investing in our roads, railways, bridges and other infrastructure. That by definition requires massive amounts of public money.

There was nothing remotely close to a representative survey conducted at Tuesday’s Tea Party, but my casual questioning of some in the crowd suggested that resistance to infrastructure investment hinges on concerns that it would result in a net loss."