American infrastructure is third world quality- support President Biden's Build Back Better

Echo Commentary: Infrastructure bill offers US the chance to catch up with China and the developed world.

The Frederick News-Post

President Biden's infrastructure bill may help the United States close the huge gap with Beijing, China and its democratic allies on transportation, internet coverage, and infrastructure investment.

When the House of Representatives finally passed President Joe Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill on Friday (November 12, 2021), my first thought was that maybe folks will no longer have to shake, rattle, and roll on Amtrak.

Anyone who regularly travels the Boston-to-Washington corridor on Amtrak has experienced train cars that shake so severely it’s almost nauseating (not to mention constant delays, lousy internet service, and dirty train station bathrooms).

These are just a few symptoms of our crumbling transportation systems, including roads, bridges, tunnels, and subways more suited to a third world country than a supposed superpower. Indeed, Beijing’s state-controlled media mocked the newly passed bill, calling it a “feeble imitation of China,” where bullet trains, broadband, and shiny new airports blanket the country.

Yet the bill’s $550 billion in new investments in roads, bridges, trains, aviation, broadband, and more offers Americans at least a chance to reenter infrastructure’s first world.

So hats off to Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s tenacity, along with the 13 House Republicans (and 19 GOP senators) who voted for the bill. Unlike the Republican leadership, they were honest enough to recognize that America needs an infrastructure overhaul ASAP, not just for its own citizens but to compete with China in the 21st century.

“If we don’t get moving, they [China] are going to eat our lunch,” Biden rightly warned, when pitching the bill in February. “We have to compete more strenuously than we have,” the president added. This infrastructure bill is about proving — or disproving — that America’s democracy can deliver as well as an authoritarian regime.

Many Americans have failed to grasp how far we have fallen from global leadership in critical areas, but the rest of the world clearly takes notice — especially Chinese leaders.

The American Society of Civil Engineers gave U.S. infrastructure a C- overall in its 2021 report card. But that includes a D+ for aviation, given delays and lack of capacity (before COVID-19); a D for dams and levees; and a D- for aging public transport.

Aviation industry rankings cited by Business Roundtable put only four U.S. airports in the top 50 worldwide, with the top-ranked coming in at 30.

Meantime, China* has poured funds into infrastructure at a rate that dwarfs U.S. efforts.

*My husband and I were in China about six years ago. We heard from our travel guides about how China was investing in infrastructure- especially in high speed rail.