By Stephen Macaulay

The situation in the U.S. has largely been one where putting things off seems like the most cost-effective course. The operative word there is seems.

Yes, it may not be economical to, say, have a stockpile of medical ventilators or a warehouse full of N-95 masks, but then a pandemic hits and suddenly there is a lot of finger pointing while people die. Clearly, medical equipment and supplies that are not being used represents inventory that isn’t making anyone any money, but what are the economic impacts of having to suddenly source these products, both from the standpoint of the effects on those who need it and don’t have it (people dying in hospitals because the ventilators weren’t there; doctors and nurses getting sick because they don’t have sufficient PPE) and that of paying a premium for the available product?

Then there is infrastructure. Go to Japan, go to Germany, spend some time in the airports, spend some time driving on the roadways, and you’ll know that while people may chant “We’re number one!” evidence in plain sight will tell you that when it comes to infrastructure, we are anything but.

According to the American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) in the U.S. there are 46,100 “structurally deficient” bridges. The ARTBA — which, obviously, has a vested interest in getting bridges built or fixed, so take a grain of salt and reduce that number by 10% and you’re still at 41,490 — estimates that this represents about one in three bridges and that it would take 50 years to fix all of those that require work. As for the states that require the most repair, the top five are Rhode Island at number one, followed by West Virginia (if Sen. Joe Manchin isn’t all over this, then there’s something wrong), Iowa, South Dakota and Pennsylvania. 

One would imagine that the politicians in those states would be more agitated by the crumbling state of their bridges — and let’s not forget that when bridges collapse, people can die — than they are the results of the last presidential election. But look at the list and consider what the concerns apparently are.

Of course, there is a concern for paying the infrastructure bill. But here’s the thing: everyone knows (or ought to know, were it that many of them would prefer to think that things are just fine until they aren’t) that there is a whole lot that needs to be fixed or added to the U.S. infrastructure, whether it is rebar in roads or fiber optic cables to provide high-speed Internet to rural communities. Water supplies. Utilities. Medical facilities. Roads.

While there is a reasonable concern that there will be monies wasted — in fact, it should be a foregone conclusion that there will be — at the end of the day there will be something tangible as a result. When the bridge collapses and people die, there is a rush to rebuild. The people are still dead. And the monies still get wasted.

Seems like a very false economy.