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Tuesday, September 17, 2013

We need a jobs bill from this Congress


From 2008 on, we have experienced the worst downturn in the American economy since the Great Depression, 80 years earlier.

No small fact.

Then, additionally, there is this report, breaking yesterday:

Many US bridges old, risky and rundown

A little from the article:

An Associated Press analysis of 607,380 bridges in the most recent federal National Bridge Inventory showed that 65,605 were classified as "structurally deficient" and 20,808 as "fracture critical." Of those, 7,795 were both—a combination of red flags that experts say indicate significant disrepair and similar risk of collapse.

And here's a kicker for us, in Missouri:

There are wide gaps between states in historical bridge construction and their ongoing maintenance. While the numbers at the state level are in flux, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri and Pennsylvania have all been listed recently in the national inventory as having more than 600 bridges both structurally deficient and fracture critical.   (Bolding added for emphasis).

When you take that into consideration along with the fact that 2 bridges in the nation collapsed last year, it seems extremely clear what needs to happen.

We need Congress to come up with a jobs/projects/infrastructure bill.

We need the work, as a nation, as a people and our highways and bridges and streets and sewers and all kinds of infrastructure need updating and improving and even saving.

Our own I-70, as I have written here so many times, needs widening and improving and being made safer, alone, from Illinois on the East, all the way to Kansas on the West.  It's a no-brainer yet here we sit.

Instead, they legislate on women's reproductive rights and on loosening gun laws and trying to have us default on our debt.

It's irresponsible, reckless and nearly insane.

Link:  Don't worry ... that bridge you're driving over won't collapse. Probably.

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