Updated 2024

The basis for our economy and prosperity is our infrastructure. It is one of the ten planks of the Unified Platform. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth century wealth could not be massively accrued by individuals or corporations without a strong national infrastructure. Unfortunately with outsourcing and out of country tax havens, that is no longer true.  The tragedy of our declining educational system, internet, power grid, roads, and bridges will take years to correct and we are already far behind other countries.

In five to ten years we might eventually get a few of the same trains that Europe had  since the 1980s. The hard unpleasant truth is we are being left behind in infrastructure by many other countries and it will take decades to catch up.

The reason I have so many references is to show this is a steadily increasing trend that I continuously update. It is not a vanishing blip on the radar. Failure to deal with this trend will have disastrous consequences for the future. 

What are some of the elements of the infrastructure on which we depend so much?

• 1-Education:  Our public education system has produced great entrepreneurs and invention, but is now under serious attack. See references 1, 38, 95, and references following.
• 2-Internet:   The United States ranks between 9th and 26th in internet speed, lagging also in access and reliability. Access is particularly worrisome as we migrate from internet neutrality towards a class based internet. The latter means less opportunity for entrepreneurs because the next generation of inventions would automatically be frozen out of top tier service. More importantly, it would freeze out independent reporting that is not available with the main stream media. See references  2-5, 43, 67, 68, 74, 78, 79, 94, 107,108 and references following.
• 3-Post Office: See reference 20, 38, 52, 98, 116, 119, 120, 121 and references following.
• 4-Power Grid and Renewable Energy: The power grid has been allowed to deteriorate greatly increasing unreliability and interruptions. Ever dwindling fossil fuels constantly increasing in price combined with more violent climate change means our ability to compete  with other countries is steadily decreasing. See references 8-13, 91, 128 and references following.
• 5-Roads, Bridges, Rail: More than lives are at stake here. Inefficient and delayed transportation costs the economy greatly. See references 14-19, 29, 35, 46, 48, 50, 51, 70, 71, 75, 81, 84, 85, 89, 90, 93, 100, 103, 112, 115, 118, 124-126 and references following.
• 6-Water: This should be a basic of any modern country, but it is not basic in the United States. See references 65, 66, 69, 76, 77, 87, 99, 111 and references following.

Where do we go from here?

First, we can stop hemorrhaging money for wars and tax breaks for rich and corporations unprecedented for the past century.

Second, as Point Ten of the Unified Platform says, "We support the establishment of a publicly funded infrastructure bank to capitalize large-scale physical projects and direct funding toward associated research and development.

Forty years of defunding the public sector has saddled America with an outdated and crumbling infrastructure. In all that time, the private sector has not stepped forward to remedy this steadily worsening reality. Contrast that with our heritage. From the Erie Canal to the Pony Express to the transcontinental railroad to the telegraph system to public education to air mail to the airlines to airports to the interstate highway system to the Internet, we have always invested in our infrastructure, which has consistently resulted in handsome benefits for our economy.

Since 2007, Congress has floated proposals for public-private capitalization of a national “infrastructure bank” to invest in energy, environmental, educational,  telecommunications, transportation, and water systems infrastructure projects. Infrastructure investment of this type offers immediate job growth and sets the stage for long-term economic expansion, and we fully support its immediate institution.

Along with natural resources and the public airwaves, public infrastructure like education, highways, railways, electrical grids, water systems, and the Internet rightly belong to the commons and should be managed and allocated in the public interest, free from interference by corporate agendas."

Help make your progressive case by using this documentation which is continuously updated. https://www.newprogs.org/make_your_case

References

1-Education

2-Internet Speed In United States Lags Behind Many Countries, Highlighting Global Digital Divide

3-Slooooooooow: U.S. slips to 9th in Internet speed

4-South Korea's Internet Is About to Be 50 Times Faster Than Yours

5-US ranked 26th in global Internet speed, South Korea number one

6-America Is Declining at the Same Warp Speed That's Minting Billionaires and Destroying the Middle Class - Not a single U.S. city ranks among the world’s most livable cities.

7-2013 Report Card for America's Infrastructure

8-Bad news: The U.S. power grid is getting pricier, less reliable

9-DoD official: Vulnerability of U.S. electrical grid is a dire concern

10-Electric power transmission

11-U.S. Electrical Grid on the Edge of Failure

12-U.S. Electrical Grid Report Calls For More Spending; Cites Climate Change And Aging Infrastructure

13-Why the U.S. Power Grid's Days Are Numbered

14-Department of Transportation Bridge Conditions

15-Condition of U.S. Roads & Bridges

16-DANGER AHEAD: America’s bridges and roads crumbling, and the Highway Trust Fund is set to go broke in 2014

17-Highway Bridges: Conditions and the Federal/State Role

18-Highway engineering

19-White House opens door to tolls on interstate highways, removing long-standing prohibition

20-The United States Postal Service is being set up to fail.

21-When public infrastructure goes private

22-Repair our crumbling infrastructure, produce good jobs

23-Privatization is Wrong

24-Infrastructure Decline

25-Declining Infrastructure, Declining Civilization

26--Infrastructure Decline

27-Declining Transportation Infrastructure Is Affecting the Economy

28-Our Crumbling Infrastructure — Patch & Pray

29-Washington Bridge Collapse Points to Declining American Infrastructure

30-Crumbling Nation? US Infrastructure Gets a D

31-The Great Regression of America's Infrastructure

32-America's Infrastructure Engineering Dilemma

33-The American Decline: Infrastructure

34-Infrastructure Decay In The United States

35-Falling bridges and the decline of U.S. infrastructure spending

36-Are America's Best Days Behind Us?

38-Prisons, Post Offices and Public Schools: Some Things Should Not Be For Profit
39-Detroit as Bantustan: Wall Street’s Black Goons

40--How the Super-Rich Are Abandoning America, Leaving the Ship of State to Sink

41-The Superrich Don't Need Our Middle Class Infrastructure

42-Bankruptcy judge approves final revision of Detroit restructuring plan

43-Message to Broadband Providers: BULLS**T

44-Just How Broken Is America's Infrastructure? (video)

45-State banks would mean jobs, credit and investment: Why don’t we?

46-The Stealth Privatization of Pennsylvania's Bridges

47-Vermont Votes for Public Banking

48-Inside America's crumbling infrastructure: The country's aging roads and bridges badly need repair or replacement. But are we willing to pay the cost?

49-China Fast-Tracks $1 Trillion in Projects to Spur Growth

50-Falling apart: America's neglected infrastructure - Steve Kroft reports on why our roads, bridges, airports and rail are outdated and need to be fixed

51-Infrastructure advances in the rest-of-the-world will blow your mind.

52-USPS Will Begin Plant Closures Next Week

53-No One Should Have to Walk 21 Miles to Get to Work

54-Rebuilding Crumbling America Shouldn't Wait

55-India pledges infrastructure spending to help economy 'fly'

56-U.S. snoozes while rest of world invests in infrastructure

57-You Can't Have a Functioning Democracy Without High Quality Infrastructure

58-Michigan Is in the Midst of a “Massive Experiment in Unraveling U.S. Democracy” - The austerity-on-steroids measures currently taking place in Michigan may soon be coming to a state near you.

59-The Price We Pay for Conservative Scorn of Amtrak

60-Tomgram: Engelhardt, What Happened to War?

61-Why Congress Can't Solve America's Infrastructure Crisis

62-After Living in Norway, America Feels Backward. Here’s Why. - A crash course in social democracy.

63-America’s Coast-to-Coast Toxic Crisis - Flint, Michigan, has had many toxic crises before this one, and America has many Flints.

64-American mass transit is dying: Three of the four largest systems in the country have been crippled this winter — and the worst is yet to come

65-Another Town Just Got Caught Covering up Lead Contamination in Its Water Supply

66-Chris Hedges: Flint’s Crisis Is About More Than Water

67-Did Net Neutrality Kill Broadband Investment Like Comcast, AT&T, Verizon Said It Would?

68-Fast Internet is Chattanooga's New Locomotive

69-Fixing Our Broken Water Systems

70-It’s Time to Fix America’s Infrastructure. Here’s Where to Start

71-Nation with Crumbling Bridges and Roads Excited to Build Giant Wall

72-One County’s Global Warming Failure

73-Tomgram: Ann Jones, Social Democracy for Dummies

74-Why many low-income families have Internet access, but remain 'under-connected' - A new report released on Wednesday finds that while 94 percent of low and moderate income families have some type of Internet access, which they use for tasks from doing homework to paying bills, cost is still an issue despite some efforts by Internet providers to introduce affordable alternatives.

75-Study: 58,000 U.S. bridges found to be 'structurally deficient'

76-Tomgram: Rosner and Markowitz, Welcome to the United States of Flint

77-What We’re Reading About the Flint Crisis: The tragedy tells us a lot about America in 2016. Here are some key points.

78-Why AT&T's attempt to kill municipal broadband in Tenn. matters to all Americans

79-Internet Infrastructure

80-America’s Homegrown Terror - Plagued by poor infrastructure, climate denialism, and a patchwork of unregulated fracking wells and nuclear waste sites, the U.S. is poised to topple itself with self-inflicted wounds.

81-American mass transit is dying - Three of the four largest systems in the country have been crippled this winter — and the worst is yet to come

82-Bank of North Dakota Soars Despite Oil Bust: A Blueprint for California?

83-Navigating like a Norwegian: How Norway Dispels the Private vs Public Sector Myth - The balance between free markets and strong government

84-SC has paid $40 million since 2010 to settle road claims

85-What happened to America’s train system?

86-Opinion: Our crumbling infrastructure is hurting U.S. competitiveness

87-Detroit hits residents on water shut-offs as businesses slide

88-Understanding the Squeeze on Millennials

89-This is why public transportation in the US is crumbling

90-The U.S. is just pathetic on high-speed rail

91-The US is badly under-investing in electricity infrastructure

92-The US is finally fixing its terrible airports

93-In five years, we might get the same trains that Europe had in the 1980s.

94-New FCC chair just blocked 9 companies from providing affordable Internet to the poor

95-21st Century Detroit-style Power and Struggle: The Detroit Literacy Case

96-Chinese billionaire Jack Ma says the US wasted trillions on warfare instead of investing in infrastructure

97-India And Japan Join Forces To Counter China And Build Their Own New Silk Road

98-The Future of the U.S. Postal Service

99-American decline: Open pools of raw sewage in the richest country in the world

100-China's 'bullet train' network is the largest in the world — and it's about to get even bigger

101-Hurricane Harvey Exposes Danger of Tax Cuts, Deregulation, Aging Infrastructure, Ignoring the Environment and ‘Limited Government’ - Here come the snake oil salesmen, pushing more of what made Harvey more destructive than it should have been.

102-MSNBC loses connection to reporter as he goes off on oil industry for robbing locals of infrastructure funds

103-Nation with Crumbling Bridges and Roads Excited to Build Giant Wall

104-Nothing to See Here, Just Freedom - Deregulation kills more people in this country than ISIS ever will.

105-Rebuilding Our Country Should Boost Good Jobs, Not Privatization Schemes - Don't leave our critical roads and bridges in the hands of giant corporations.

106-The Slow Decapitation of America - The powerful are winning the war against the institutions that protected society.

107-Ajit Pai’s Plan Will Take Broadband Away From Poor People

108-UK has fastest mobile internet while US lags behind, says report

109-White House wants to help states, cities offload infrastructure

110-Pouring trillions into the black hole of war while our national infrastructure continues to decay - Pouring more and more trillions into the black hole of war must come to an end before the condition of America’s infrastructure becomes virtually irreversible.

111-From Pittsburgh to Flint, the Dire Consequences of Giving Private Companies Responsibility for Ailing Public Water Systems

112-How the Koch Brothers Are Killing Public Transit Projects Around the Country

113-Military Spending Is Already Bankrupting America   Since 2001, the U.S. government has spent more than $1.8 trillion in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – that’s $8.3 million per hour.

114-Tomgram: William Astore, Enabling Armageddon 

115-Why Did America Give Up on Mass Transit?   (Don't Blame Cars.)

116-How Congress Manufactured a Postal Crisis—And How to Fix it - An unprecedented congressional mandate threatens the Postal Service's ability to continue to provide good jobs and universal service

117-America's infrastructure is decaying — here's a look at how terrible things have gotten

118-Why the US Sucks at Building Public Transit  America is worse at building and operating public transit than nearly all of its peers. Why is that? And what can we do to fix it?

119-Postal Service plans to remove 671 high-volume mail processing machines

120-The Post Office Is Deactivating Mail Sorting Machines Ahead of the Election

121-Biden Urged to Fire Entire Postal Service Board for Complicity in 'Devastating Arson' by Trump and DeJoy - "Trump confessed he was wrecking USPS to rig the election. His toady Postmaster General DeJoy carried out that arson. It's time to clean house."

122-Building or Unbuilding America?

123-Biden's Weak Infrastructure Plan

124-The Complex 50-Year Collapse of U.S. Public Transit - A new analysis of a half-century of transportation patterns in U.S. cities shows how the share of transit commuters has plunged in most — but not all — metro regions since 1970. 

125-Past, present and future: The evolution of China's incredible high-speed rail network

126-America Aspires to One Day in the Far Future Build Rail Service Worse Than It Was in the 1940s - Amtrak has a bold vision for the future: slower trains than the days before color television.

127-Too hot to handle: Crumbling US infrastructure melts under excessive heat

128-Tesla's help for the Power Grid Infrastructure (YouTube)

129-Global Spotlight Report #58: National Power Systems

130-How the Historic Billion Dollar Initiative by the Biden-Harris Administration will Modernize America’s Electric Grid

131-High speed trains are racing across the world. But not in America

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