America’s infrastructure is in bad shape and the bill to repair it is increasing according the report “Failure to Act: Closing the Infrastructure Investment Gap for America’s Economic Future 2016 released last week by ASCE ( American Society of Civil Engineers).
Over the next decade, it would cost more than $3.3 trillion to keep up with repairs and replacements, but based on current funding levels, the nation will come up more than $1.4 trillion short, the group says. When projected to 2040, the shortfall is expected to top $5 trillion, unless new funds are allocated.
Without that investment, the group said in its report this week, Americans can look forward to more highway traffic jams, airport bottlenecks and potential power outages, as reported by John Schoen of CNBC. The deterioration of U.S. ports, roads, trains, water and electric facilities will also take an economic toll, the engineers said, cutting payroll growth by some 2.5 million jobs and some $4 trillion of gross domestic product in lost sales and higher costs.
"America is currently spending more failing to act on its infrastructure gap than it would to close it," said Greg DiLoreto, the society's past president and chairman of the Committee for America's Infrastructure.
He added that crumbling infrastructure "has a cascading impact on our nation's economy, impacting business productivity, gross domestic product, employment, personal income, and international competitiveness," said the engineering society's report, an update to a previous report released three years ago.
Since its last report in 2013, some areas have shown improvement, helped by recent federal, state and local investments.
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