For some time, the White House has touted the fact that a 2019 World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report ranked the nation’s infrastructure 13th out of 144 surveyed countries.  However, the United States continues to lag behind other developed nations in much needed infrastructure repairs and capital improvements. For example, China has invested heavily in its infrastructure in recent years, spending over 5% of its gross domestic product on transportation infrastructure as compared with one-half percent spent by the United States. Ian Duncan, “Here’s how U.S. infrastructure compares to the rest of the world,” Washington Post, Apr. 13, 2021. The U.S. figure is well behind several other nations as well.

The federal government’s historic lack of financial commitment to improving the nation’s deteriorating infrastructure earned the country a grade of C- in the American Society of Civil Engineers’ (ASCE) 2021 Infrastructure Report Card. See ASCE 2021 Infrastructure Report Card. One could argue that the C- grade is fairly generous Inasmuch as the nation actually scored a D in 11 out of 17 critical categories. Indeed, U.S. roads scored a D with 43% of the national road system in mediocre or poor condition, a condition which has not improved for many years. In addition, 42% of the nation’s 617,000 bridges are at least 50 years old and over 46,000 of those are structurally deficient and in poor condition according to ASCE. Because of deteriorating roads and bridges, the nation is facing a $786 billion backlog of repairs and capital improvements with $435 billion needed for road repairs and $120 million needed for bridges repairs.

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