Congress needs to find political courage to fix nation’s bridges

I offer my sincerest apologies to the 400,000 men and women who are buried in Arlington National Cemetery: The bridge built to carry the fallen of a grateful nation to their final resting place, Memorial Bridge, is in an embarrassing state of disrepair. Due to corrosion and a lack of upkeep, the span is partially shut down. 

Unfortunately, this is not the only bridge in the nation deemed “structurally deficient.” It is just one of the more than 61,000 — 1 in 9 — bridges in the U.S. with that same designation, but it is one of our most sacred. 

{mosads}Those in Congress who choose to continually ignore the important and constitutionally mandated role they play in funding our nation’s roads, highways and bridges have led us to this sad situation. Our nation’s surface transportation infrastructure is paid for by the Highway Trust Fund. The monies coming in to pay for infrastructure are dwindling and projects are on the verge of insolvency. Instead of doing what is right and finding much-needed capital, Congress has chosen to do what is politically expedient time and time again.

Since 2008, there have been 33 patches or extensions on infrastructure funding bills. This is what has led to the neglected condition of our bridges. Now Congress has passed a two-month extension, yet again avoiding the difficult but necessary decision to pass a long-term solution to stably fund our nation’s roads, highways and bridges.

Those who made sacrifices in conflicts as far back as the American Civil war, presidents, astronauts and others who built and fought to protect, many of whom paid the ultimate price, are buried in Arlington. What does it say that today that supposedly grateful nation will not even pay the price to simply maintain what they sacrificed to build and protect? They deserve better. The nation deserves better. Congress can fix it as soon as it finds the political courage to do so.

From Michael W. Johnson, president and CEO of the National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association, Alexandria, Va.

As a physicist, I would like to comment on the ongoing debate about science funding. 

First of all, we all need to agree that America would not enjoy the current economic, military and technological superiority it currently has without the fruits of decades of advances in science that occurred after World War II. Today, too many of our political, business and social “elite” are poorly versed in science and do not understand that without strong investment in scientific research (the economic benefits of which often can require decades), we will lose our pre-
eminence as a global superpower, period. 

Second, I would like to point out that the alleged squandering of research dollars is far lower than in the private/corporate sector, where billions of virtual dollars can be lost in a microsecond. The potential payoffs of scientific research are real and nearly priceless when considering how scientific research drives innovation and thus our economy. 

Third, I would ask our leaders to seriously consider scaling back our illegal wars abroad and not waste astonishing taxpayer dollars viciously bombing former allies such as Serbia in 1999 and instead redirect those funds toward scientific research and rebuilding the decaying infrastructure of our nation.    

We have to put science research funding first, for the sake of our future.

From Michael Pravica, Henderson, Nev.