America Too Broke to Fix Crumbling Infrastructure? “Bridges, Roads, Airports In Long Term Collapse”

by | Feb 17, 2017 | Conspiracy Fact and Theory, Emergency Preparedness | 116 comments

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    This article was written by Michael Snyder and originally published at the Economic Collapse blog.

    Editor’s Comment: It is certainly solid to suggest that the entire national infrastructure is in bad need of an overhaul. Bridges, roads, tunnels, sewage, water pipes, the electric grid and more are corroded, toxic, faulty and blemishes. They reflect the vibrance and prosperity of the country, and it is no surprise to find the worst cases of these failing public works in some of the most economically depressed areas of the country, with high unemployment, and in the big cities where too many people are crammed together and overflowing the various utilities and roadways.

    The problem adds to the deep structural problems, with economic growth and a return of good jobs necessary to balance the investment, but also needed to stimulate boosted productivity, spending and commerce. The federal debt is bloated and prone to complete disaster. Personal households, cities and states, and many businesses are all prone to bankruptcy, debt implosion and foreclosures and closed doors. The big question is how to get out of the financial hole that has everyone so captive… it’s a big question, but the answers somehow never seem to surface – and it is my suspicion that the powers that be want it that way, with most everyone too desperate to challenge their power.

    Can the quagmire be overcome? Will a make over fix the bigger problems Americans are facing?

    11 Deeply Alarming Facts About America’s Crumbling Infrastructure

    by Michael Snyder

    No matter what your particular political perspective is, if there is one thing that virtually everyone in the United States can agree upon it is the fact that America’s infrastructure is crumbling.  Previous generations of Americans conquered an entire continent and erected the greatest system of infrastructure that the world had ever seen, but now thousands upon thousands of those extremely impressive infrastructure projects are decades old and in desperate need of repair or upgrading.  The near catastrophic failure of the Oroville Dam is a perfect example of what I am talking about.

    We should be constructing the next generation of infrastructure projects for our children and our grandchildren, but instead we are in such sorry shape that we can’t even keep up with the maintenance and upkeep on the great infrastructure projects that have been handed down to us.

    Once upon a time nobody on the entire planet could even come close to matching our infrastructure, but now our crumbling infrastructure has become a joke to much of the rest of the industrialized world.  Sadly, this is just another symptom of our long-term economic collapse.  We simply are not able to put as much of our money toward infrastructure as previous generations of Americans did, and as a result we have a giant mess on our hands.

    The following are 11 deeply alarming facts about America’s crumbling infrastructure…

    #1 According to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, nearly 56,000 bridges in the United States are currently “structurally deficient”.  What makes that number even more chilling is the fact that vehicles cross those bridges a total of 185 million times a day.

    #2 More than one out of every four bridges in the United States is more than 50 years old and “have never had major reconstruction work”.

    #3 America does not have a single airport that is considered to be in the top 25 in the world.

    #4 The average age of America’s dams is now 52 years.

    #5 Not too long ago, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave the condition of America’s dams a “D” grade.

    #6 Overall, the American Society of Civil Engineers said that the condition of America’s infrastructure as a whole only gets a “D+” grade.

    #7 Congestion on our highways costs Americans approximately 101 billion dollars a year in wasted fuel and time.

    #8 According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, over two-thirds of our roads are “in dire need of repair or upgrades”.

    #9 In order to completely fix all of our roads and bridges, it would take approximately 808 billion dollars.

    #10 Federal spending on infrastructure has decreased by 9 percent over the past decade.

    #11 According to Bloomberg, it is being projected “that by 2025, shortfalls in infrastructure investment will subtract as much as $3.9 trillion from U.S. gross domestic product.”

    The quality of our infrastructure affects all of our lives every single day.  For instance, we all simply take it for granted that safe, clean drinking water is going to come out of our taps, but recent events have shown that is not necessarily always going to be the case.

    Just ask the residents of Flint, Michigan.

    Water pipes, sewer systems and water treatment facilities all over the nation are aging and are in desperate need of repair.  Of course the exact same thing could be said about our power grid.  It was never intended to handle so many people, and on the hottest days of the summer the strain on the grid is very evident.

    And of course the power grid is exceedingly vulnerable to an electromagnetic pulse event, and this is something that I covered in my book on getting prepared.  It has been projected that it would only cost a couple billion dollars to harden the grid against an EMP event, but our politicians refuse to spend the money.

    Meanwhile, President Trump is completely correct when he says that our airports look like something that you would see in a third world country.  Most of our airports are at least several decades old, and they are definitely showing their age.

    But things are even worse when you look at other systems of mass transit around the country.  While other nations such as Japan and China are investing huge amounts of money into high speed rail, we are doing next to nothing even though what we currently have is absolutely pathetic.

    I could go on and talk about our ports, schools, waterways, parks, etc. but I think that you get the point.

    President Trump’s instincts are right on the money when he says that he wants to spend a trillion dollars on infrastructure.  Without a doubt, we desperately need it.

    The problem is that we are flat broke.

    We are 20 trillion dollars in debt, and we are adding more than a trillion dollars to that total every year.

    So where are we going to get the money?

    It is easy for liberals to say that we should raise taxes, but how much more are you going to squeeze out of U.S. consumers?  Two-thirds of the country is living paycheck to paycheck, and we just learned that U.S. household debt has risen to a grand total of 12.58 trillion dollars.

    Once upon a time, America was the wealthiest nation on the entire planet and we could afford to construct bold, new infrastructure projects from sea to shining sea.

    But today we have the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world and we can’t even afford to repair what we already have.

    When I speak of our long-term economic collapse, this is precisely the sort of thing that I am talking about.  We have clearly been in decline for a very long time, and anyone that would suggest otherwise is simply not being honest with you.

    This article was written by Michael Snyder and originally published at the Economic Collapse blog.


    GetPreparedNow-MichaelSnyderBarbaraFixMichael T. Snyder is a graduate of the University of Florida law school and he worked as an attorney in the heart of Washington D.C. for a number of years.

    Today, Michael is best known for his work as the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog and The American Dream

    If you want to know what is coming and what you can do to prepare, read his latest book [amazon text=Get Prepared Now!: Why A Great Crisis Is Coming & How You Can Survive It&asin=150522599X].

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      116 Comments

      1. The US has been living on former glory for some time as a reduction in funding has cut into the muscle of infrastructure that remained from the days of wealth creation. The Electrical Grid is not immune as deregulation has reduced profits and hence maintenance and upgrades. We have become a hollowed out shell.

        • Kevin2,
          try looking at the budget of HOW MUCH MONEY gets sent to foriegn countries and things like NATO, we CAN take care of ourselves IF they would STOP sending MOST of our money overseas!! audit the fed for a start!! dry up the overseas money pit!

          • The electrical grid is a product of deregulating the generation end of power. At one time regulated monopolies ran with oversight of a public utility commission. It was guaranteed that there was sufficient funds for maintaining the distribution end known as the grid. As IPPs (Independent Power Producers) were allowed to generate they cut into the utility’s profits of which some were used to maintain and upgrade the grid. This 40 year growing trend has forced the public utility to do less and less on grid maintenance and upgrade.

            The Foreign Aid for the most part keeps who TPTB want in power for their gains which may or may not be in the best interests of the USA. Expending their power and wealth is the goal. In effect the USA is little more than an employee of TPTB without a pension or benefits package.

            • YUP,
              you might also like to now under to old rules coal fired power plants were required to keep enough cola on hand for emergency use and that is not regulated and so there is very little reserve to keep plants up and running.
              the lack of the public watching the feds in office has led us down a path that at this point we might not return from!

              • Here, there and everywhere the fat from the, “good old days” has been cut into with budget cuts both public and private. Its a gym class here, a 13.5 oz package as opposed to 16 oz there. Its all a grand illusion of maintaining the image of normality while the country has been slowly bleeding to death. A timely transfusion of QE maintains the vitals but the body is no longer producing sufficient blood volume requiring an increasing number of transfusions.

                One black swan event will cascade all of it both directly and indirectly.

                • Kevin2, all we need is an EMP, which is still very possible, and our infrastructure will no longer be an issue. I don’t see any part of our infrastructure being restored, period.

                  • The Deplorable Braveheart,
                    YUP, certain types of replacement or repair parts are no-longer available in the states and big transfomers are not only being made overseas they are NOT shelf items and requires custom buildiing which can take up to three years to get at CURRENT terms, so YES we could be very screwed !!

                    • An EMP has a return address. You don’t want to be the sender. EMP & “Conventional Nuke” are lines of armageddon that if crossed go into and area where the gloves come off. Even India, employing nuclear weapons, can kill more than Germany and Japan did in WWII. Any nation crossing this line would receive the condemnation of the entire world including their supposed allies as no one wants to be the recipient of the reply. China would invade North Korea over this.

                • Kevin2 ,
                  a good way to put it. we are a body (brain dead) on a life support system running on batteries and the batteries are going dead!

                  • Put those batteries in backwards, then keep coming and coming and coming!!!

                  • Look what’s been accomplished just since election day. Christians and secular folks alike are amazed at what God and our new President has done. Even the Elite, the Illuminati Cabal say they know what is happening is a result of divine intervention. They have openly stated, “No man could have done all this.”
                    The Elite recently revealed that Soros has gone rogue. They have the same agenda most of the time now Soros has been stepping outside their plans, probably thinks his time is short.
                    This is a long ongoing process, we will be seeing more prayers answered such as
                    securing our borders and fxing immigration issues
                    cleansing of the media
                    getting rid of obamacare,developing better healthcare system
                    healing the economy
                    help for our Veterans
                    making military strong again,moving from war mentality to peace mentality
                    rebuilding of inner cities
                    restoring educational systems
                    exposing corruption at all levels
                    Much remains to be done, it will take time,so much has been allowed to deteriorate for so long.

                    • He did none of the above to any degree that would do any good, and if you want good luck and lots of money pass this comment onto 10 more people with blinders on.

              • Lets start by defunding the UN. Put all who work there back on a ship and stamp their foreheads “Return to Sender”.

          • Get RID of the Rothschild banking cartel, those blood suckers have STOLEN TRILLIONS of dollars from us in the past 100 years. End the endless Middle East wars for Israel, Rothschilds and the military industrial complex. You’d have ALL the prosperity that you could stand. Get rid of AIPAC, run them out.

          • The problem is compounding interest if we only paid once then we can pay for it all. we make a payment and it goes on and on so if we barred 100,000 for a house and payee 15% we would pay back only 115,000 not 300,000 pluses. We all pay more in interest then principle. but then the FED could not keep us in slavery could they. Yes I know we sign up for it but someone needs to ask why?

        • Just left usdebtclock.org
          No matter what category you look at, the numbers are staggering.
          Hollowed out shell, and then some.

        • The fact is this, the politicians stole the money that could of been used for a lot of beneficial things. And even when there was so much money around that nobody noticed that they were stealing it, they were hiring people that either couldn’t do the work properly,or didn’t do it at all to keep them in office. Affirmative action is a cancer whether in politics or labor.
          This country has been being milked for a very long time. And the people at the top didn’t lose a dime. They made money lots of money, while destroying the country as planned. It’s very close to the end game now. They needed an army to mop up. They imported half of it, while the other half was being educated as to whom the enemy was. You know, like the only reason that you are unemployable is because them white folks did that to you. Well, right now them other folks are ready make things right. Turn the country into a turd world hole where they will feel comfortable, while those at the top have efficiently eliminated any threat to their control by pumping up the turd worlders as planned.

        • Agree.

        • America is consistently collecting record breaking tax collections. Our problem is that for tow many years we had had leaders (sic) that felt they needed to represent anyone in the world more than their own citizens. We have spent trillions on foreign aid and infrastructure while neglecting our own.

          It is walled globalism. Formally called the New World Order that was roundly blamed as a tin foil conspiracy.

          Now the globalists are out of the closet screaming about what they need to accomplish. That is to take the wealth of the developed nations and pour it down the various black holes in the world.

          When they are complete please keep in mind that over 80% of the nearly 7 billion people in the world live on less than $10 a day. If you want globalism you need to start working on how you are going to support your family on your $300 a month allotment.

        • “America Too Broke to Fix Crumbling Infrastructure? ”

          In a word, “NO!” American Corporations have FOUR TRILLION DOLLARS offshore that they would like to repatriate.

          TRUMP and Congress could create an “INFRASTRUCTURE RENOVATION CORPORATION” to repair American roads, bridges, airports, etc by giving that Agency the power to issue (low rate) TAX FREE Federal Infrastructure Bonds; similar to Municipal Bonds.

          Those multinational corporations investing in those Infrastructure Bonds would receive a special tax break on repatriated funds invested in those Infrastructure Bonds, in addition to the tax free income from those bonds.

          Investment capital would pour in from all over the world, as it usually does in a crisis anyway, and these funds would not hyperinflate the stock and treasury markets.

          Basic government finance. Problem solved. 🙂

          • Trump is expected to announce his infrastructure plans on or around the State of the Union.

            A private-public partnership bond program: MAGAbond.

            The sales pitch will be Americans making America Great again.

          • If the corporations want to move their products they will fix the roads. If the corporations would like to see depopulation then they will not fix the roads and not deliver any products. Or maybe they will deliver some products to certain areas at 10 times the cost until all the money has been sucked out of the country and then will cut everything off. You don’t need a government to fix roads. You don’t need a government for much else than general welfare.

      2. Get rid of welfare and student loan programs huge savings there!
        No money for foreign countries, savings plus more savings.
        Get out of UN and Nato, savings.
        Fire the deep state who are over paid and over rated, biggest savings! Keep only dept of defense per Constitution.
        1/4 pay for Congress and none for their staffers. Sleep on a cot in your office! Answer your own phone! Type your own stuff.
        Stop importations of more welfare people, more savings and less drivers.
        Arrest and asset forfeiture Soros and his buddies then pay of debt principle, loads of interest savings!
        No federal money to states. They have to get there budgets under control or go bust!
        Federal tax to 10% and everyone pays for defense!

        Good opportunity to wipe the slate clean and start over. Besides people would quit coming her if we’d stop hand outs! I say we have 25 million who do not belong here.

        • Eagle 1 …..BINGO!

          • More like fed tax too 3% and abolish the BLM, IRS, TSA, NSA, DHS, and host of other worthless parasites!

            • like I said before, let some of us do the budget and there WILL BE enough Money to fix the country! 3 major money changers
              1- FLAT tax, no loop hole, donwsize IRS, NO refunds because of the flat tax
              2- NO money sent outside the USA from the fed government
              3-HEAVY penalties for ALL companies who shipped there jobs overseas, TAX them until it would be cheaper to operate in the USA!
              this would be a good start!

        • Don’t forget term limits. And no lifetime health insurance OR pensions after they leave.They are all lawyers anyways. Let them go back to their old jobs if they need money. They need
          to stop treating former congresspeople like royalty.

          • joeybagofdonutsandbagels,
            YES your ideas are perfect! we only NEED politicians who WANT to HELP this county and NOT like the current ones who see it as a MONEY maker and RETIREMENT plan JOB!! clean out the henhouse!!

        • eagle1, I agree that all your suggestions are not only valid; but, correct as well. But, we suffer from something far worse in this country. Malaise. When I see piss-poor civil engineering planning (I live in Florida) that schedules the most intensive work during the busiest season, when I pass crews so employed where 4 men are standing around jawing supporting a shovel while but one is digging, when there are more persons flagging traffic and setting up diversion cones than there are workers engaged in the industry of repair or construction… I am dismayed. When I (bear with a self-employed man) hear wage-earners, salaried or time-clock employees complaining about the ‘unfairness’ of their employers or bitching about their jobs; when, I am delighted as the phone rings and a new project comes in, I am further worried. What is needed is a new look at work. For men and women to be happy to even have a job. To take pride in even the most menial of tasks. To do all things well and completely. To see additional steps that should be taken and do so sheerly out of the want to do things the best way possible… I would be encouraged. But, no… we’ve a mind-set that is entrenched that to sweat is ‘dirty’, to care for a job done right is not ‘your’ business, that any need that creates work is a need that should be addressed to the very height of ability… I see the ennui and sickness in our culture. Not all of us shirk hard labor. And to be blunt – all of us need to realize that if you use the shitter, you should be willing to clean it once in a while. It’s not always ‘someone elses job’.

        • Instead of spending money fixing their infrastructure, California is spending it on new legislation and support for the LBGT community.

          In California, they are debating LGBT bathroom legislation and whether transgender people will be permitted to use a restroom of the gender that they “identify” with or be required to use the restroom of their biological gender.

          If the latter, public restrooms may be required to have a Genital Inspection Station posted at the entrance to all public restrooms.

          Who will have to pay these Pecker Checkers, the people using the restroom, the entity that owns the restroom, or more likely the taxpayers?

          And how much money will a Pecker Checker be paid to check
          peckers?

          Or, do we pay a Pecker Checker by the number of peckers
          checked?

          How many peckers can a Pecker Checker check if a Pecker Checker could check peckers?

          Obviously if this takes hold in California, other liberal-contaminated states would follow. What has this country come to when the U.S. Department of Labor has to create a new job description of Politically Correct Restroom Service Inspectors?

          Want to guess their motto ……….???

          If You gotta pee – We gotta see!

          • It is the same in Europe: I was just reading about conditions in Greece and Italy. Both countries are completely falling apart but there is vast sums available to support the increasing number of illegal migrants coming into Southern Europe. Essentially, these people are arriving and mooching off both countries while all around them these countries are falling to pieces. The migrants are not working or contributing to re-make these countries; they are just leeches waiting for the next scam.

            A telling picture is all these migrants’ kids playing on the derilect airport equipment at one of Athen’s airports. A post-apocalyptic hell populated by gurning Muslims kept fed with international aid. These rats need to be sent back to their own countries where they can get to work fixing the mess they made there in the first place, not dragging Europe down.

            • Frank: You so hit it on the head my friend!! I agree with you 100%

          • blackmoe…thanks a lot, I just spit coffee all over my keyboard….has anyone else been watching john McCain?has he been promised a seat with the now or what???

            • mccain is not a hero he’s a traitor and pimp for the nwo warmongers needs to gtfoo our country!

        • aaaaaaaaaant…”Arrest and asset forfeiture.” FAIL

          Arrest, CONVICTION, and asset forfeiture.

          That is essential to even some semblance of 4th and 5th Amendment Rights.

          Even for a butthole like Soros and his buds…

          <bb

          • Soros has multiple outstanding warrants and is a special case.

            • add a LARGE DOLLAR (20 million or more) bounty on Soros DEAD or aliive and see what happens, H—L I might even get interestd in that one!! LOL

      3. A MESSAGE TO THE CHI-COMS, jihadist and other rogue nationalist who want to take over America.

        So you chi-coms want to invade from Mexico. Good luck to you.

        If you want a civil war, to take on the so called red necks. Then see this link. Its shows what a civil war really looks like.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWenOlORsO8

        HCKS.

        Your fucking with fire.

        Molon labe.

        • Who would want to take over a country with shot infrastructure. It would be the last thing that they would want to do.

          • Chi-Coms may more likely invade to simply rape the natural resources for their use back in the homeland.

        • Oh Texas.

          I love you so much, Texas. (The state of Texas, not you, don’t worry LOL).

          God if anyone should secede… it’s them. Pretty sure they could take on most of North and Central America all by themselves and win it haha!

          Meanwhile… California shuts its fricking mouth about secession the second some dam they refused to maintain breaks open. No no we were just kidding! Give us our Federal disaster relief money… please?

          Nice lead hose there. You guys get to own that shit? That’s awesome haha!

        • China invading the US is a logistical impossibility.

      4. In California a lot of blame, deservedly so, goes to the Dem Libs. They have super majorities and they own the executive branch and the judicial branch as well.

        These Dem Libs prioritized a bullet train from SF to LA and funding for illegal aliens even when the civil engineers told them that Oroville Dam needs to be strengthened.

        California needs to split into 2 or more states.

        • Yep. If you got rid of Cook County, the state of Illinois would be in good shape. Chicago
          poisons the well. Same thing with Clark County in Nevada. Las Vegas became Los Angeles.
          Two cities took down two entire states. Really sad what happened to those once great
          states. I digress.

          • Yep, States with big cities need to have a 1 county=1 vote policy. To keep the shitty dwellers from destroying the rest of the state.

            • In addition, each person’s vote should be weighed by an IQ factor; the more intelligent a person is, the more his/her vote counts; the dumber the person, the lesser the vote counts. Why should dumbasses count the same as those of higher intellect?

            • Sorry, but the SCOTUS ruled the county unit vote system (specifically in GA) unconstitutional in the early 60s.

              That’s why GA gubernatorial candidates never cared about the votes from the big cities because their county vote counted only bit more than rural counties like Echols that bordered the Big Swamp with more gators than voters.

              Although the County Unit vote system seems to mirror the Electoral College , the Judges allowed how Electoral votes are a distributed One Man-One Vote System writ large because the Electoral votes are based on population while the County Unit votes although distributed somewhat on a population basis overvalued the rural vote.

              I don’t think the SCOTUS would move off that position. (Just my opinion)

              <bb

      5. Every state is telling the fed govt. ” Baby needs a new pair of shoes “.
        We are BROKE. As in 200 trillion in unfunded liabilities, BROKE.
        Fill that pothole with gravel and call it a day. We don’t have it.

      6. When it comes to War and the War Machine for the MICM- Military Industrial Complex Mafia, they easily come up with Trillions of Dollars out of thin air. $3 Trillion was spent on just the Iraq War. However just 20% or 1/5th of that $3 Trillion of wasted money could have put Solar Panels on every Roof in America. That’s a Fact. F*ck the Corrupt Government. Sit down strike. Stop paying Taxes.

      7. You have to direct your investments where they are needed most. This means on the most productive areas of the country and not on the basis of politics. The rust belt and poorer areas would get nothing. You need a way to charge tolls on rebuilt bridges and highways. It may not be a matter of choice.

        • I used to cross a bridge over the walbash river between ill and Indiana on hwy 141. I paid a toll that was for bridge upkeep. You had to stop dig out the fee and pay the toll worker. they gave you a receipt. Then one day I was told to call a number. I did and they sent me a transponder. stuck it on the windshield and never had to stop again. The tore down the toll booth and sacked the employees. Saved the taxpayers a lot of money. I don’t mind paying a toll if it is used for road work.

          • You might not mind paying more but I do.

          • Road work is SUPPOSED to be paid by the ever increasing GAS TAX.

            • Actually the gas tax hasn’t been increasing especially if you factor in inflation. The gas tax is based on a per gallon tax amount. For example say the gas tax was 37 cents per gallon. when the price of a gallon of gas was $1.00 per gallon. When the price doubled the tax remained the same. yet the cost of everything the government uses to repair infrastructure Labor,fuel, asphalt,cement, equiptment ect. all have risen in price. If the Tax was based on a percentage of the dollar amount sold yes the gas tax would rise. And the oil companies only make about 15 cents profit on every gallon sold. The cost of refining and transport and operating retail outlets eat up profit. They make the most profit from the other products that they get from the refining process. there are lots of chemicals extracted and the various oils and lubricants. Now semi trucks do pay a per mile road use tax. and they pay for fuel permits for every state the operate in. I paid about $8000 in licence and permits every year on my semi trucks. When Obama got diesel prices at $4 per gallon my truck,s where parked. The older rigs got parted out and I sold the better ones at a loss. If I had to put it on the road to derive a profit you couldn’t give me a brand new semi truck.

      8. During the years of plenty, like the tech boom of the 90’s little was invested in the nation. During the last 8 years the debt was near doubled and the treasury is worse than empty.

        Obama’s plan was to destroy the US as we know it. He’s done a good job! We are a dying nation.

        The NWO globalist government will not invest in the US’s infrastructure either.

        • Trouble is the money goes from one coffer to another depending who’s pet project gets the nod.

          • Give me dirt roads or give me death!

            • My brother visited the northeast US once. While driving to the airport he exclaimed, “we had smoother DIRT roads in Wyoming! He was right!

          • McConnol Senate leader on the news tonight, said they had a plan for healthcare, but not the votes!

            Same shit, another day!

            • YUP, UNTIL WE THE PEOPLE replace ALL the politicians currently holding office and PUT some ordinary (smart private citizens) in there place with a realitic mind set, we do NOT stand a chance!! every tom,dick and harry, from fed to states levels HAVE to be replaced and NEVER ALLOWED to hold a office again, and ANY new person holding ANY level of office must be constantly monitored for corruption,

      9. Quit paying 100 billion to illegals.

      10. Calif spends 25.3 BILLION per year supporting illegals. This ‘ploy’ politicians use to justify stealing more money from citizens is a scam. They allow infastructure to fail, this gives a real reason for the ‘pruning’. We are but a crop, no different than the kings of old. Where did the 957 BILLION go that was justified by ‘roads,bridges,schools’? When America STOPS giving our money away we CAN fix these concerns. Absolutely NO OVERSIGHT in spending from the little towns to the white house. For years have witnessed MILLIONS spent on stupid designs that do not work. Agencies wasting money just because the budget needs to be deleted before years end. There IS ENOUGH MONEY!!!! STOP WASTING IT!!!!! (industrial field engineer)

        • Ben Dover,
          YES, IF we the people were to get into the budget and MAKE a REAL budget including the fed budget we could make a HUGE difference, I hear you i used to run large dollar projects, 250 million and up, so yes i completely understand it has pissed me off for YEARS!

      11. It is February 17, 2017 and 3:13pm in Southern California. The lovely weather yesterday has given way to dark clouds and heavy winds. Although the rain has yet to fall, it is very apparent that a storm has blown in from the Ocean as meteorologists predicted. The Dam in Oroville will no doubt receive it’s expected rainfall. Pray that all remains safe for those families who have returned to their homes.

        __

        • We can not keep allowing these Banksters to rob us and to allow us to decay, which they say has been their plan. Natanyahu speaking to the spy Pollak said it flat out.

          No more foreign aid. Disconnect from The City Of London and The Chew Federal Reserve in Chew York. Print American Dollars. Give every citizen one million dollars.

          One hundred years of being robbed is enough.
          How about on Christmas Eve, we celebrate the creation of the Federal Reserve Act by robbing a bank. Instead of a peaceful protest that goes nowhere. And make sure to employ your second amendment.

          __??? __

          • It’s raining !!

            __

            • Give a man a gun and he can rob a bank…
              Give a man a bank and he can rob the world…

              • Its a variation of:

                “An uneducated man robs a train, an educated man steals the railroad”

                President TR Roosevelt

                • and a country of brain washed citizens can be completely stolen!!

                  • apache54

                    This scene from the movie Animal House sums up the US public culpability regarding where we are.

                    h ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOXtWxhlsUg

                  • apache54

                    This explains the culpability of the US public regarding the state of affairs the nation is in.

                    h ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOXtWxhlsUg

                    • Kevin 2,
                      Thanks for the link

                    • As great as they are and for many were, the “Greatest Generation”, tempered by poverty in the great depression, rightly or wrongly given hope by an interventionist government complements of FDR and then unified by WWII trusted government despite glaring warnings to believe otherwise. JFK, Vietnam and the demise of the Bretton Woods gold standard was ignored because they had a good job and the brass ring of a good pension was in arms reach. I do understand their cause and effect thinking. Conversely I cannot fathom the baby boomers that came of age with Vietnam and seen promise after promise broken and US in decline. How a John Kerry, head of the Vietnam Veterans Against The War can promote so much US imperialism with criminal intervention escapes me.

          • B from CA,
            the banksters BOUGHT the politicians off allowing the banksters to buy out and merge companies and that stopped competition and thus they have a captured markest and can do as they wish and WE the people pay for there crookedness!

      12. #4 “The average age of America’s dams is 52 years”.

        We just saw what happened with the evacuations in Oroville. With the exception of TVA, Tennessee Valley Authority, Dams are under Federal jurisdiction, not municipal/state.

        The local and state governments had not only asked the Feds for help and funds to fix SERIOUS problems, they begged for the money, for Federal assistance, which never came. They waited for Trump to take office and then requested the funds from his administration/secretary, which were denied.

        Of course the Feds have now thrown it back on the state and blamed them for neglecting the dangers when they were crying out for Federal aid for well over a year, including again more recently.

        Meanwhile, in excess of $25 billion is being spent on a wall when our nationwide infrastructure is crumbling all over the country. Priorities people, priorities.

      13. You get a left wing POTUS
        You get a right wing POTUS

        Either way you keep growing and paying that debt and usury.

        It’s how the fiat system is set up. ALL money is loaned into existence as debt with usury attached. The money supply (debt) must continually grow or the system crashes.

        There will probably be some 100 year infrastructure bonds set up that all retirement funds will be required to invest in. To go along with that, they will roll out the multi-generational 100 year home mortgage and the 30 year car note.

        Get busy Secretary Mnuchin.

      14. Actually Here in Arkansas there has been a great deal of road work. A new black river bridge was just opened at black rock Ar. A new bridge is under construction over the same river at Pocahontas. A new four lane section of highway 67 was just opened between Hoxie and Newport. Lots of widening and reconstruction of Hwy 412 between the state line and ravenden ar. There have been lots of road and bridge work completed in the last 5 years. Also Missiouri has been doing a lot of bridge work. Two are scheduled for replacement this summer on V highway near Myrtle Mo.

      15. The Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration provides funding for aid and relief work abroad and the bureau’s admissions office handles settling refugees in the United States. According to the agency’s website, it spent nearly $545 million “to provide new beginnings to the world’s most vulnerable refugees” in 2016 and more than $2.8 billion to “humanitarian assistance overseas.” It provided $103 million directly to the UN’s International Organization for Migration.

        http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/weekly-updates/refugee-secrets/#anc1

        Tons more savings found!

      16. apache54 says:
        Comment ID: 3666146
        February 17, 2017 at 5:04 pm

        Kevin2,
        try looking at the budget of HOW MUCH MONEY gets sent to foriegn countries and things like NATO, we CAN take care of ourselves IF they would STOP sending MOST of our money overseas!! audit the fed for a start!! dry up the overseas money pit!

        Well said. If we stop feeding other countries for seven years, we could not only repair our infrastructure AND upgrade our electrical grid. We could train/retrain all unemployed worker for today’s manufacturing challenges.

        Drifter

        • Drifter

          US global “commitments”, largely to facilitate globalist business expansion and control is the reason the US “gives” money away. End the reason, end the spending. As USMC MG 2x recipient of the MOH Smedley Butler said, First goes the dollar, then goes the flag” in his book “War Is A Racket”.

          None of this is done for benevolence. When the US wants to bomb Libya in violation of every UN Agreement the member states do as the US tells them and votes the way the US wants. The dialog of foreign leaders against the US is for their own public consumption as the globalist banksters use economic leverage and use US / UK intelligence and if need be, military muscle to get what they want. There are only a handful of truly independent nations outside of their reach in the world.

      17. Been in decline for a long,long tine. And the officials that collected paychecks back then knew it. If these people were held accountable for their actions few would go into public office.

      18. I’m an expert in “Systems design”. I know that roughly 66% of the cost of a “thing” is the maintenance of that system over its life expectancy. I’m not talking about a single bridge, I’m talking about all of them in a highway system for example.
        All of Interstate 90 for example, from Seattle to Boston. No one ever figured out how to take care of it after they built it.
        That is a philosophical argument I have with all government.
        When you build something, you have to take care of it.
        If you don’t it will wear out and malfunction.
        An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
        Democrats pissed the wealth away, so it is all “Buss up”.

      19. The American Dream has long been dead and America itself is living out its final years of existence.
        Gone are the days of owning an affordable home or car. Every year the dollar loses more buying power. And the American middle class has been largely destroyed.
        America’s never ending fake Wars on Terror will continue to weaken and preoccupy the U.S. military.
        The IRS continues to steal directly from millions of paychecks each year.
        The Federal Reserve continues to loan fiat money to the bankrupt Zionist controlled government.
        People laugh about a silly shadow government when in fact illegal and unjust things are being done in plain sight.
        America will be destroyed just as The New World Order has planned.
        Those that believe Jesus will return to save humanity will not like what is in store. All religions are man made and it’s no coincidence that Judaism, Christianity. and Islam share elements.
        This “Jesus” will return to head The New World Order and reign as the Earth’s king.
        I leave you with a quote.

        “a holy war will now begin on America, and when it is ended America will be supposedly the citadel of freedom, but her millions will unknowingly be loyal subjects to the Crown.
        Your churches will be used to teach the Jew’s religion and in less than two hundred years the whole nation will be working for divine world government. That government that they believe to be divine will be the British Empire. All religions will be permeated with Judaism without even being noticed by the masses, and they will all be under the invisible all-seeing eye of the Grand Architect of Freemasonry.”

        General Charles Cornwallis,confession to General George Washington at Yorktown
        at Yorktown Oct. 17, 1781

        • Truth:

          Excellent post.

          The person who outlawed Free Masonry has become synonymous with evil. People are so brainwashed, they can not think clearly enough to reason their way out of the maze of lies.

          Here are some facts.

          The European Monarchs, the Kings and Queens, lost their power to the money lenders because they were fighting one another, and needed to borrow money, at interest, to pay for these wars.

          Queen Victoria, of England, had many children who became rulers of different Countries.
          The Royal Family of Russia, Cousins of the English Monarchs, were betrayed by their jealous English Royal cousins because the Russians were much wealthier than they, the English, who were German and who had been infiltrated while in Germany.

          The American Revolution, fought against England for independence was fought between English Settlers in America and The German mercenaries hired by England to do the fighting. These real Germans out numbered the settlers. They liked the pristine Country and almost all decided to stay. Land here was free. European land was expensive. The founding fathers voted on whether to make German the official language.

          In 1930’s America, the majority population was German or part German. Going to war against Germany and Italy meant that Americans were at war with their own families in those Countries. Patriotic Americans were being influenced by Free Masons. FDR, Churchill, Stalin, and Truman were all Free Masons.

          Free Masonry, according to Theodor Hertzl and many others is “Chew wish”.

          More money goes to “Is real hell” than all other Countries combined.
          Is real hell has attacked our Navy, our Embassy, and is suspected in the 911 attack.

          A college education is free in “Is real hell”.

          A college education is not free in America.

          __

      20. Ha we have a interchange that is held up with wood blocks set up like the game jenga under the bridge where the concrete supports are I shit you not. The concrete has flaked off from the rebar rotting from years of road salting have it on their agenda of urgent jobs they claim. I cross my fingers everytime I go over it in my rig. They have replaced a lot of bridges using sub standard concrete a cost saving strategy. One bridge has a whooptie doo in the deck. An engineering miscalculation for sure. They blame trucks for the 50 year old bridges that were never maintained for the damage. Only one construction company gets the bid for the work corrupt to the core.

      21. “We are 20 trillion dollars in debt, and we are adding more than a trillion dollars to that total every year. So where are we going to get the money?” You’re kidding, right?! Cut spending on foreign wars, foreign aid, the UN, central government, Obamacare, medicare fraud and social security fraud, subsidy of illegal aliens, and redistribution of every other sort imaginable! Use that money to rebuild America.

      22. I guess those salaries of the entire 7th floor of the State Department that Rex just fired can be used for something necessary.
        Thanks Mr. Tillerson.

      23. Well, New Mexico’s new bill is a start in the right direction; no more funds for trips to find Bigfoot, Pokemon, Leprechaun, etc..and it’s for real.

      24. AND….education or those budgeting education are idiots.
        The amount allotted schools each year is spent even if not needed.
        How do I know?? I taught puclic school and each year if the alltoment wasn’t spent, the next year it was decreased in $ amount–so, departments were encouraged to buy shit not ever used, not even needed.
        Multiply THAT by hundreds of government departments.

      25. “if there is one thing that virtually everyone in the United States can agree upon it is the fact that America’s infrastructure is crumbling.”

        Okay. I guess I am going to be the lone person to disagree.

        This mantra of late that our infrastructure is falling apart is a psy-op.

        If you understand the central planners, the Internet of Things World (Big Brother – 1984)- you will understand that our infrastructure is lacking the required sensors and communication equipment to finish our electronic fence. The Big Brother fence that will track you everywhere you go.

        So now, they are planting this crap everywhere that are infrastructure is falling apart, including Trump. Don’t fall for it.

        I traveled 6300 miles in a month this past summer – our infrastructure is not falling apart. Yes, there are pockets of problems – Tappan Zee Bridge etc, but they are exaggerating for a reason.

        For instance, do you know why they are writing articles about children born today will never drive? Because its true. There is a 20 year plan to bring us to self driving cars only. Controlled mobility. Step 1 is in motion as we speak – mandate two way radios and basic safety messaging in all new cars. Go to regulations.gov and type in Docket No. NHTSA-2016-0126 and read for yourself. You can also comment on the rule, but must do so before April 12, 2017.

        You can’t have connected cars unless your infrastructure is set up for it, can you?

      26. Some technical,advice from some of you survival savants. I need a portable solar panel that will charge Aa- aaa envelop batteries. I don’t give a rats rectum about wether it can charge phones or I pads or any of the other useless shit. I just need a workhorse that will charge my batteries for stuff I need. Anybody found something functional and durable, I would be in your debt ifyou shared it

        • Goal Zero has a couple of items that I personally use and like. Their Nomad series of small PV panels are small tough and portable. The Guide 10 Plus is a cool little Charger/Powerpack for rechargable AA and AAA batteries The charger plugs right into the solar panels for charging. The panels are small enough to bungee to your backpack to charge your batteries while walking (providing you have direct Sun exposure to panel of course).

      27. The easy thing to do would be to get rid of the Federal Reserve and the private banks that are raping the US. Create series of public banks across the US.

      28. Pittsburgh International Airport just won the International airport of the year….so take that !

      29. Money used to be in a “Transportation Fund” yo be used for roads,bridges,tunnels,etc. The govt. rolled it into the general fund and thats why there is little or no money for these projects. Your federal, state and local gas taxes are supposed to go for that too. With everyone getting fuel efficient cars there is less tax money coming in. Government now wants to tax you by the miles you drive instead of by the gallon. Go figure!

      30. In my city for the past three years nearly complete sewer and water pipe up grade to include a new bridge built in the 50’s. The main street through town has been up rooted new optical cables, new pipes for sewer and water. Still limited traffic. Often, maintenance crews are digging up the side streets and alternate routes are closed and traffic is a terrible mess at times to find a way home. Two or three projects all at the same time.

        But, I should get an award; I still call in sink holes or water leaking from pipes that come to the road surface.

        One thing is for sure, the depth of this Infrastructure
        upgrade will keep many people employed for a long time.
        Going to have to cut funds in other places.

        Much waste in social programs.

        • See any FEMA camps in the area?

      31. If there is a solar flare or a EMP exploded over the country. All that money wasted. What vehicles will be running? We are behind the eight ball. Structures are deteriorating and move vehicles slide off the assembly line every hour.
        Agree lots of money has been wasted in programs that were to help people in life.

        Weird. I thinking about a good bicycle or a small portable boat. Can any of you actually row a boat correctly? Can you use a canoe. Have you every used a small sailboat.

        I need more coffee.

      32. Maybe we should just cur the amount of infrastructure we have to a more manageable and less expensive to maintain level.

        Either that or get rid of the illegals and their associated costs to pay for what we have.

        The right choice is obvious, cut the infrastructure.

      33. Get a keep with big ass tires and a snorkel so you can ford rivers. Your gonna need one after the balloon goes up anyway. I’d rather not pay for roads and use that$ for a off road vehicle.

      34. Such are the consequences of 70 years of war lining the pockets of Neocons’ military/industrial complex and the curse of intentionally misinterpreting the Bible (Genesis 12:3) to wage war. Maybe Israel will pay to rebuild US infrastructure.

      35. How much do they spend to keep fathers away from families? Thus 6 generation of leaches. the Give me State.

        How much money do they spend each year on Abortion/murdering of babies?

        How much money do they spend each year on the UN?

        How much money do they spend a year for kids in school that will never add anything to society.

        How much money did the Prez spend on Vacations last year?

        I’m not even scratching the surface of wasteful spending.

        Sgt.

      36. There is a plenty of money to fix/upgrade infrastructure. A few places to start:

        1) The Retroactive Restoration Act: Make everyone who has accepted welfare and benefits pay that money back. Put those funds towards infrastructure. Also make illegal immigrants have to pay back the money for all the free health care, schooling etc. they took before then deporting them. If they do not want to pay it, then a) take that money from their origin country, or, b) remove foreign aid and security payments to that country and impose tariffs on that country until the illegals cough up.

        2) Shut down half of the overseas bases. Also shut down half of the super-glamorous, hi-tech State Department listening posts that are spread all over the planet. Do most Americans even know State Department officials have their own private hospitals and doctors in these facilities?

        3) Divert some of the funds from the secret space programmes, clandestine continuity of government programmes, and from the Deep State, which currently soaks up trillions and trillions in US tax funds.

        There’s a start for yah!

        • Frank Thoughts

          “Make everyone who has accepted welfare and benefits pay that money back”

          Love the thought, its the implementation where the problem is. First they need a job that pays enough so they no longer qualify for food assistance. That rules out Walmart. Unless and until US manufacturing comes back I can’t see this working. You can’t get blood from a stone.

          The old CCC camp of the great depression incorporated public assistance with infrastructure in the WPA Works Project Administration. The people might actually learn a trade in the process. The unions would have to bend their rules filling in some amount of these people along with their skilled tradesmen. If it increases the total work and gets people on WorkFare not WellFare its a win win.

      37. America is now a third world country. The government isn’t broke, it’s insolvent. Much worse. And the extent of the work that needs to be done on water pipelines in the cities is scary. Every pipe needs to be replaced. Basic needs will not be met.

      38. I disagree.

        When you consider that 90% of the wealth, ie debt, is held by the 0.1% then it becomes really easy to rebuild.

        Step one, create a new dollar and exchange all the old IOUs for the new dollars at 20/1. All private debt is treated the same way. So a 100K loan in old dollars becomes 5K in new dollars. This also means that all public and private pension plans would need to become public as well, but here is the fun part, and something the 0.1% won’t like. The haircut will be progress with only those who have more than a million old dollar in pension IOUs getting any hair cut at all into new dollars. All hard assets and physical assets will be priced based on whatever the new dollar market bids for them.

        From this foundation, and with a lot of people out of work yet willing to work, we’ll have plenty of capacity in a non-inflationary way to pay all the new workers to rebuilding our infrastructure while simultaneously restoring the currency supply, vacated by the 0.1%.

        Or we could continue to let the 0.1% drive our wages, jobs and GDP down while our debt climbs and we all default one by one all while blaming/fighting each other as we gradually all become slaves to the new world order hoped for, by you guessed it, the 0.1%.

        Being a proud member of the 99.9% I like the first choice personally, what is yours? I say “The ants pick the food, the ants keep the food, and the grasshoppers leave.”

        Below is link that shows just how out of balance the ‘wealth’ (much of it is debt) is held. A trend that began as soon as labor stop being paid in real money in 1971 which unbalanced the level playing field between labor and capital,leaving those at top that controlled the issue of fiat based currency/credit/capital in control of just about everything and labor and net producers/savers with nothing that couldn’t be ultimately stolen, by you guessed it again, the 0.1%.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM

        • spaulj67

          Excellent video.

          Thanks

      39. The whole state of Michigan is falling apart. The drinking water is contaminated, the lakes are being filled with sewage, and the first person to get involved, the fringing politicians. A construction worker gets involved after the money’s gone.

      40. This is a good article and it needed to be brought forward. For a long time now we have known our infrastructure is raggedy and breaking down. While past administrations and presidents have bloated and extended government, turning it into a huge $$$ eating machine maggot, while ignoring the needful things of the entire country, naturally, the people’s faith in government has gone. We have gotten used to looking at ageing bridges, bad roads, boarded up stores, empty malls, etc. It has begun to look like a post war country. With the amount of money going out of our pockets, people unable to save a dime anymore, pensions being raided, one could go on and on…..it sure looks bleak and we’ve gotten used to the old business as usual reps in congress and government distancing itself from the very people who are paying for it to exist. No, it hasn’t been good to us, not at all and it keeps holding it’s hand out for more money while we look at our empty pockets.

        That being said, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and I’m looking at the actions of a new president, not at the president politically or in any other way than at the actual things he has started to do while in office such a short time! In his recent press conference he said he walked into a big mess. He surely did. From all indications, he was shocked and appalled at the waste of money in the government he walked into. Like us, he always heard about “government waste” but I don’t believe he was prepared for how big and widespread that waste was until he got in Office. One can tell that it affected him because he immediately told the mfg’rs that the cost of an Airforce One was outrageous and they had better come down in price. He’s making motions to get rid of the money sucking EPA, or pare it down to skeletal remains….and that’s only the tip of the iceburg. He’s made inroads into doing away with the costly trade practices that sent us into mind blowing trade deficit, and we had to pay high tariffs for our stuff going into other countries, and had to watch foreign stuff coming in here for free. But now, it’s going to be tit for tat. He has made a deal with one auto industry to come back into Michigan and spend 700 million $$ in rebuilding the auto industry back up, creating a plethora of things…jobs, economy, ….breathing life into what is now a dead zone. These and much more, while paring down the government wherever he sees he can. Never mind the screams from the entrenched useless fat rats feasting off our money for so long in our government folks, it is the scream of the death of waste. Did you expect no reaction to cutting waste? Don’t be unnerved, stay the course, it’s necessary surgery … and you’re going to hear noise about it. But it’s happening! Hope is here and our conditions will improve, it’s beginning already.

      41. B from CA:

        Great information in your post about the true history of the world.
        I wonder why no one can see how much influence the Free Masons/Zionists have around the world. The Zionists control a large majority of our mainstream news and Hollywood studios.
        The Zionists like Robert Kraft even dominate scripted professional football.
        The USS Liberty attack was carried out by a unmarked Israeli fighter plane, which done to draw the U.S. into war with Egypt.
        I have no doubt Israel was involved in 9/11. If the Zionists can create a monster like Hilter there are no limitations to the evil they are capable of.
        For those that believe Trump will save America, I leave you with a quote.

        “You know very well, and the stupid Americans know equally well, that we control their government, irrespective of who sits in the White House. You see, I know it and you know it that no American president can be in a position to challenge us even if we do the unthinkable. What can they (Americans) do to us? We control congress, we control the media, we control show biz, and we control everything in America. In America you can criticize God, but you can’t criticize Israel” Israeli spokeswoman, Tzipora Menache

      42. Time for a big sale on crooked banks.

      43. Too Broke? Not even, it’s just that they have other priorities like giving illegals every thing they want. Or giving themselves raises or bonuses and perks. The money is there but they don’t care!

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