# What would the Republican argument be against putting people to work on our failing infrastructure? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 24, 2019, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-the-republican-argument-be-against-putting-people-to-work-on-our-failing-infrastructure/842217 "2019-10-24T05:38:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2019, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-the-republican-argument-be-against-putting-people-to-work-on-our-failing-infrastructure/842217/81 "2019-11-02T22:39:52Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > This is the Chinese robber fallacy. > According to the Federal Highway Administration there are 616,096 bridge in the US. There are 47,000 or 7% that are rated as poor. Ten years ago there were 13,000 fewer bridges overall and 13,000 more rated as poor. The percentage of bridges rated as poor has fallen 30% in just ten years. > Our infrastructure is fine and getting better, not crumbling. I can find that [page](https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/bridge/britab.cfm), too. The FHA rates bridges on a scale of 1-10. > [@](#): > > If the lowest rating is greater than or equal to 7, the bridge is classified as Good; if it is less than or equal to 4, the classification is Poor. Bridges rated 5 or 6 are classified as Fair. Fewer than half the bridges are rated good. ```auto All Good Fair Poor TOTALS 616,096 283,316 285,676 47,054 ``` Back in 2009, guess what? Fewer than half the bridges were rated as good. ```auto All Good Fair Poor TOTALS 603,310 286,540 255,430 60,817 ``` And a full 30,000 bridges have been added to the Fair column. What do you think is happening to those bridges? Are they getting better? Or are they the ones whose repair is being put off for lack of money while we frantically try to rescue the ones rated as poor? What happens when those hundreds of thousands of bridges fall from 6 to 5 to 4? Or 3. Or lower? You might also want to acknowledge that bridges are merely one small part of the infrastructure issue, which includes all transportation, communication, sewage, water, and electric systems. As I said earlier, we need to be thinking generationally. Fighting fires that are already happening is the worst possible strategy for a government, not to mention the most expensive and wasteful. That’s true no matter what party you belong to. You want to shut your eyes to reality, go ahead. Just get out of the way of the rest of us whose eyes are open. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2019, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-the-republican-argument-be-against-putting-people-to-work-on-our-failing-infrastructure/842217/82 "2019-11-04T17:35:03Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > But infrastructure is all roads. And interstates, being a road system started by the federal government, is more the responsibility of the federal government in general. I don’t know the breakdown of funding in particular, but I doubt the feds pay less for it than they do for state or local roads. No… what I’m getting at is that the Feds have a formula to apportion highway money for interstate highways to the various states, who are then responsible for maintaining the sections of interstate highways through their states. > [@Voyager](#): > > Oh, red states like taxes now? Just one more instance of a lot of states who complain about the federal government having no problem taking more than they give. > I don’t know the deal with Vermont, but there aren’t a lot of people to support some nasty roads. Huh? I’m just pointing out that say… Texas, Oklahoma and the Carolinas are all red states, and they’re all paying the majority of their roads, just like California, Oregon and New York. Meanwhile, we have states like Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and New Mexico that aren’t. I don’t really think it’s a red state/blue-state thing; the two states in the country with the most highway miles are Texas and California, and both pay the majority of their road maintenance themselves. > **[Road Miles by State--A chart of states and number of road miles | Cubit's Blog](https://blog.cubitplanning.com/2010/02/road-miles-by-state/)** > > Check out FHWA's Road Miles by State data. Texas leads the way with 679,917 miles followed by California with 394,383 miles. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-the-republican-argument-be-against-putting-people-to-work-on-our-failing-infrastructure/842217.md?page=4)