LETTER: America behind in fixing infrastructure

To the editor:

After decades of disinvestment, our roads, bridges and water systems are crumbling. Our electric grid is vulnerable to catastrophic outages. Too many lack affordable, high-speed internet and quality housing. It’s embarrassing that the greatest nation in the world is ranked 13th in the overall quality of infrastructure, according to a study in 2019.

Government officials from both parties have been promising for years how they will move forward with an infrastructure plan. Former President Donald Trump announced two different infrastructure weeks that never happened. Gov. Tony Evers promised if elected he would fix “the damn roads.” Finally, we have a president and a governor who are working on infrastructure at the same time.

Evers’ Badger Bounceback agenda shows his commitment to fixing the 1,949 miles of crumbling roads as well as the 198 bridges which are in poor condition in Wisconsin. His 2021-23 budget brings the state’s investment in transportation aid for local roads to its highest level ever.

Infrastructure telecommunications include internet connectivity and broadband access. Every Wisconsinite should be able to access and afford internet. Evers’ would like to invest five times the amount invested in the 2013, 2015, and 2017 budgets combined making internet services affordable to all income levels.

President Joe Biden is also committed to improving our infrastructure. Biden’s American Jobs Plan is an investment in America that will create millions of good jobs and rebuild our country’s infrastructure.

The American Jobs Plan will invest in America in a way we have not invested since we built the interstate highways and won the Space Race in the late 1960s. The past year has led to job losses and threatened economic security. Our nation is falling behind its biggest competitors on research and development, manufacturing and training. It has never been more important for us to invest in strengthening our infrastructure and competitiveness, and in creating good-paying jobs of the future.

In a Monmouth University Poll survey, 68% of U.S. adults supported the president’s infrastructure package dealing with physical needs including road, bridge and tunnel upkeep, as well as broadband internet expansion and electric vehicle investments.

Hopefully our elected officials can support the people, compromise, and come up with infrastructure plans that improve life for all Americans.

Jan Koch, Shawano