$129 billion a year lost to nation, household incomes will fall more than $7,000, if infrastructure is not improved. So goes the Tea Party Movement.

While tea party draconians demand ridiculous spending cuts, while enjoying glowing media reporting, the nation’s real solutions require job creating investments (spending) for future prosperity. Jonathan Alter mentioned the following report lost in the inane debt ceiling debate:

WP: The nation’s long-term transportation needs; decaying roads, bridges, railroads and transit systems are costing the United States $129 billion a year, according to a report issued Wednesday by a professional group whose members are responsible for designing and building such infrastructure.

Complex calculations done for the American Society of Civil Engineers indicate that infrastructure deficiencies add $97  billion a year to the cost of operating vehicles and result in travel delays that cost $32 billion.

“If investments in surface transportation infrastructure are not made soon, these costs are expected to grow exponentially,” the ASCE said. “Within 10 years, U.S. businesses would pay an added $430 billion in transportation costs, household incomes would fall by more than $7,000, and U.S. exports will fall by $28 billion.” It is the latest of several reports to predict dire consequences if the nation does not swiftly address the need to rebuild 60-year-old highway systems and rail lines often far older than that.

In May, a report by the Urban Land Institute warned that the United States is falling behind three emerging economic competitors: Brazil, China and India …  issue addressed last year by 80 experts concluded that as much as $262 billion a year must be spent on U.S. highways, rail networks and air transportation systems.

Unable to agree on long-term aviation funding, Congress proved incapable last week of passing a simple extension of current funding levels, something it has done 20 times since funding for the Federal Aviation Administration losing an estimated $30 million a day in airline ticket tax revenue.
Rep. Nick J. Rahall II said the ASCE report underscored the folly of efforts to “do more with less.”
“Slashing investments by one-third, as Republicans have proposed to do, will make the economic impact on America’s middle class even worse than the grim predictions by the economists in this report.”

The ASCE report predicted that without infrastructure investment, 870,000 jobs would be lost and economic growth would be stifled to the tune of $3.1 trillion by 2020. To avert that, the report says, will require an investment of about $1.7  trillion by 2020.

Ultimately, Americans would get paid less, the ASCE report says. The economy would lose jobs, and the paychecks of those who are able to find work would be cut by nearly 30 percent. The cost of a crumbling transportation system was described by Steven Landau of Boston’s Economic Development Research Group, which did the research for the ASCE. “Business will have to divert increasing portions of earned income to pay for transportation delays and vehicle repairs, draining money that would otherwise be invested in innovation and expansion,” Landau said.