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Tens of thousands of U.S. bridges rated deficient; repair costs estimated in the billions
WASHINGTON -- More than 70,000 bridges across the country are rated structurally deficient like the span that collapsed in Minneapolis, and engineers estimate repairing them all would take at least a generation and cost more than $188 billion.
That works out to at least $9.4 billion a year over 20 years, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers.Separately, the Federal Highway Administration has said addressing the backlog of needed bridge repairs would cost at least $55 billion. That was five years ago, with expectations of more deficiencies to come.
It is money that Congress, the federal government and the states have so far been unable or unwilling to spend.
What $1.2 Trillion Can Buy
By David Leonhardt
The New York Times
Published: January 17, 2007...
In the days before the war almost five years ago, the Pentagon estimated that it would cost about $50 billion. Democratic staff members in Congress largely agreed. Lawrence Lindsey, a White House economic adviser, was a bit more realistic, predicting that the cost could go as high as $200 billion, but President Bush fired him in part for saying so.
These estimates probably would have turned out to be too optimistic even if the war had gone well. Throughout history, people have typically underestimated the cost of war, as William Nordhaus, a Yale economist, has pointed out.
But the deteriorating situation in Iraq has caused the initial predictions to be off the mark by a scale that is difficult to fathom. The operation itself — the helicopters, the tanks, the fuel needed to run them, the combat pay for enlisted troops, the salaries of reservists and contractors, the rebuilding of Iraq — is costing more than $300 million a day, estimates Scott Wallsten, an economist in Washington.
That translates into a couple of billion dollars a week and, over the full course of the war, an eventual total of $700 billion in direct spending. ... Whatever number you use for the war’s total cost, it will tower over costs that normally seem prohibitive. Right now, including everything, the war is costing about $200 billion a year.
posted by dgags @ 8:27 AM
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