America's infrastructure is collapsing.

[PeterS]

I said the same thing then that I do now. UnfundedFederal mandates for medicare and medicaid amng other things have meant that states many of which have balanced budget amendments simply have not had the money to do proper maintenance.

Most states have long depended on federal matching funds - often called pork - for maintenance of existing highways and construction of new ones.

By the way a four fold increase in truck traffic would automatically guarantee that the states would receive four times as much actual revenue from that source.

And I say the same thing now as it did then. Any state that diverts dedicated fuel tax fund to the general fund looses matching federal funds. You can only divert funds if your intent is to lower general revenue. Not a good idea if you are trying to pay for higher mandates. And you really think a 80,000lb truck on has 4 times the impact on a road as a passenger car? Don't think so bubba...

 

[Bfgrn]

Now these are not exact numbers, but just take a nuclear power plant, now before you all start beating me up on nuclear power, I'm a strong nuclear power advocate. The average plant employ's between 1000 and 1500 people on a perm. basis and thats just the plant, and does not include the additional 2 to 3000 support people. During the constuction phase a power plant creates somewhere around 15 to 20,000 jobs in all phases of consturction. Now it seems to me and maybe this is being too simple I suppose that knowing this and knowing the benefits in terms of jobs, etc. etc. etc. at least to me thats a real stimulus. What seems to be lost on some, is that when these people are employed , they also have healthcare insurance, and in an environment like that, then perhaps, the Govt. could actually focus on real healthcare reform like costs, rather than what some K Street lobby group wants them to focus on.

The major problem of nuclear waste is what to do with it. In fact, one of the biggest (and perhaps the single biggest) expenses of the nuclear power industry could eventually be the storage of nuclear waste. Currently there are several ways in which nuclear waste is stored. Most of these methods are temporary. In most cases a viable long-term solution for waste storage has yet to be found. This is because the time period for storage is so incredibly long, on the order of thousands of years.

In the US a permanent storage site has been selected at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.

The Bane of Nuclear Energy: Nuclear Waste - Storage

Do we really want to transport waste from all over the country to Yucca Mountain on our crumbling infrastructure?

 

[garyd]

Peter the problem is fuel taxes simply aren't a sufficient source of revenue for road maintenance let alone anything else and if the feds demand you commit x dollars to said priority then you have to commit x dollars to said priority whether you rather spend the money on something else or not.

BF try using info that isn't based on thinking that goes back to the 70's. Most socalled N waste can either be reprocessed or is useful for N medicine or other purposes. France which obtains 80% of it's power from nuclear plants stores all of its waste in an area the size of a small apartment.

 

[Political Junky]

It takes money to maintain the infrastructure, and cons only want to cut taxes. Go figure.

 

[Navy1960]

The State of Arizona taxes motor fuels and collects fees relating to the registration and operation of motor vehicles,including gasoline and use fuel taxes, motor carrier fees, motor vehicle registration fees, vehicle license taxes( VLT), and other miscellaneous fees. Revenues are deposited in the Arizona Highway User Revenue Fund (HURF) and are then distributed to the cities, towns and counties and to the State Highway Fund. These taxes and fees are a major source of revenue to the state for highway construction, improvements and other related expenditures.

/3. Per Laws 2008, Chapter 285 (HB 2209) and Laws 2009,
1st Special Session, Chapters 1 and 2 (SB 1001 and SB
1002) $67.0 million of the state highway fund share of
HURF VLT is transferred to the state general fund in FY
2009.

http://www.azdot.gov/Inside_ADOT/FMS/PDF/hurf09.pdf

Chapter 282 Section 5 of (senate Bill 1413) Arizona further reuquited an additional 118.0 million from the highway fund to the states general fund. So to simmply imply that monies collected through the gas taxes is somehow untouchable and those accounts for road improvements are somehow only used for that purpose , while that may be true for some states its is not true here.

 

[Navy1960]

Connecting those dots, is very easy, social spending in a state such as Arizona is increasing at a record pace, and it's a given that road traffic has increased and that taxes fund road construction. In Arizona for example, it takes a super majoirty to raise taxes because of a state constitutional amendment. Given the rise in social spending and with additional millions in mandates for social spending i.e. Medicaid, and given the fact that state taxes will not go up anytime soon and the tax base is shrinking because of the massive number of forclosures, what do you think the state will do faced with the choice of building roads or increasing social spending? Thats how the dots are connected in this state. One aspect of those cuts also includes, cut backs in funding for police, fire, and other state funded services as well, and you asked why roads are falling apart? Increased truck traffic is just one part of the overall reason why state roads are falling apart.

How much of the State's "social spending" results from us NOT providing health care for our citizens?

that said, I'd have been all for putting the stimulus into infrastructure projects. If you recall, the repubs went balistic, demanded that the stimulus bill be largely made up of more tax cuts ...

and then refused to vote for it.

I never did understand why anyone agreed to that.

jillian, it's my contention that if the focus was more on actually reforming healthcare rather than mandating states come up with funding they do not have then the costs would be lower. Further, by providing the inventives needed for projects that actaully create long term jobs, then the result will not only be more people employed but will also be more people with healthcare insurance especially if that insurance has been reformed to the point where it is less expensive and more available. You know what I have advocated on here, and its a far cry from where many stand I suppose, and thats a method of providing catastrophic coverage and then creating the incentives for a flousising private market for those that wish to purchase on-going healthcare coverage. I don't see where demanding state, like my own come up with additional monies to provide Medicaid coverage at the expense of infrastructure , teachers, police, fire, etc. when it's my belief that both can be done given the right atmosphere to do so.

 

[☭proletarian☭]

It's okay. America won't be around much longer.

 

[AVG-JOE]

The infrastructure collapse is of the American people. A lack of fiscal conservatism, drive, ambition and vision has left us with the present mess. A situation so bankrupt, that many felt a person without executive experience, radical ideology and a teleprompter could save the day. It is time to get to work people. Rolled up sleeves work that will be thankless and painful.

Get to work doing what, exactly?

I already spend 9 hours a day doing my 'job' so I can shelter and feed myself and Mrs. AVG-JOE.

If I could be doing something different that would fix things, I would like to hear what it is.

What this country lacks and has lacked for a long, long time is quality leadership. This is the broken promise of Obama that is truly bleeding We, The People.


First rule of accounting - Stop the bleeding.

 

[Bfgrn]

Peter the problem is fuel taxes simply aren't a sufficient source of revenue for road maintenance let alone anything else and if the feds demand you commit x dollars to said priority then you have to commit x dollars to said priority whether you rather spend the money on something else or not.

BF try using info that isn't based on thinking that goes back to the 70's. Most socalled N waste can either be reprocessed or is useful for N medicine or other purposes. France which obtains 80% of it's power from nuclear plants stores all of its waste in an area the size of a small apartment.

Really, as of 2006 the issue was not solved...
-----------------------------------------------------
Things were going very well until the late 80s when another nuclear issue surfaced that threatened to derail their very successful program: nuclear waste.

French technocrats had never thought that the waste issue would be much of a problem. From the beginning the French had been recycling their nuclear waste, reclaiming the plutonium and unused uranium and fabricating new fuel elements. This not only gave energy, it reduced the volume and longevity of French radioactive waste. The volume of the ultimate high-level waste was indeed very small: the contribution of a family of four using electricity for 20 years is a glass cylinder the size of a cigarette lighter. It was assumed that this high-level waste would be buried in underground geological storage and in the 80s French engineers began digging exploratory holes in France's rural regions.

To the astonishment of France's technocrats, the populations in these regions were extremely unhappy. There were riots. The same rural regions that had actively lobbied to become nuclear power plant sites were openly hostile to the idea of being selected as France's nuclear waste dump. In retrospect, Mandil says, it's not surprising. It's not the risk of a waste site, so much as the lack of any perceived benefit. "People in France can be proud of their nuclear plants, but nobody wants to be proud of having a nuclear dustbin under its feet." In 1990, all activity was stopped and the matter was turned over to the French parliament, who appointed a politician, Monsieur Bataille, to look into the matter.

Christian Bataille resembles the French comedian Jacques Tati. His face breaks into a broad grin when asked why he was appointed to this task. "They were desperate," he says. "In France, executive power dominates much more than in Anglo-Saxon countries. So that if the Executive asks parliament to do something it means they are really at the end of their ideas."

Bataille went and spoke to the people who were protesting and soon realized that the engineers and bureaucrats had greatly misunderstood the psychology of the French people. The technocrats had seen the problem in technical terms. To them, the cheapest and safest solution was to permanently bury the waste underground. But for the rural French says Bataille, "the idea of burying the waste awoke the most profound human myths. In France we bury the dead, we don't bury nuclear waste...there was an idea of profanation of the soil, desecration of the Earth."

Bataille discovered that the rural populations had an idea of "Parisians, the consumers of electricity, coming to the countryside, going to the bottom of your garden with a spade, digging a hole and burying nuclear waste, permanently." Using the word permanently was especially clumsy says Bataille because it left the impression that the authorities were abandoning the waste forever and would never come back to take care of it.

Fighting the objections of technical experts who argued it would increase costs, Bataille introduced the notions of reversibility and stocking. Waste should not be buried permanently but rather stocked in a way that made it accessible at some time in the future. People felt much happier with the idea of a "stocking center" than a "nuclear graveyard". Was this just a semantic difference? No, says Bataille. Stocking waste and watching it involves a commitment to the future. It implies that the waste will not be forgotten. It implies that the authorities will continue to be responsible. And, says Bataille, it offers some possibility of future advances. "Today we stock containers of waste because currently scientists don't know how to reduce or eliminate the toxicity, but maybe in 100 years perhaps scientists will."

Bataille began working on a new law that he presented to parliament in 1991. It laid plans to build 3-4 research laboratories at various sites. These laboratories would be charged with investigating various options, including deep geological storage, above ground stocking and transmutation and detoxification of waste. The law calls for the labs to be built in the next few years and then, based on the research they yield, parliament will decide its final decision. Bataille's law specifies 2006 as the year in which parliament must decide which laboratory will become the national stocking center

Bataille's plan seems to be working. Several regions have applied to host underground laboratories hoping the labs will bring in money and high prestige scientific jobs. But ultimate success is by no means certain. One of these laboratories will, in effect, become the stocking center for the nation and the local people may find that unacceptable. If protesters organize, they can block shipments on the roads and rail. The situation could quickly get out of hand.

Nuclear waste is an enormously difficult political problem which to date no country has solved. It is, in a sense, the Achilles heel of the nuclear industry. Could this issue strike down France's uniquely successful nuclear program? France's politicians and technocrats are in no doubt. If France is unable to solve this issue, says Mandil, then "I do not see how we can continue our nuclear program."

FRONTLINE: nuclear reaction: Why the French Like Nuclear Energy

 

[☭proletarian☭]

America won't survive long. Morons are crying for the Fed to mute their tv for them when the commercials come on.

American's are too stupid to sustain this nation. Hopefully, whoever takes over will fix things. It's one of the requisites a new regime must meet to garner my support.

 

[Navy1960]

Now these are not exact numbers, but just take a nuclear power plant, now before you all start beating me up on nuclear power, I'm a strong nuclear power advocate. The average plant employ's between 1000 and 1500 people on a perm. basis and thats just the plant, and does not include the additional 2 to 3000 support people. During the constuction phase a power plant creates somewhere around 15 to 20,000 jobs in all phases of consturction. Now it seems to me and maybe this is being too simple I suppose that knowing this and knowing the benefits in terms of jobs, etc. etc. etc. at least to me thats a real stimulus. What seems to be lost on some, is that when these people are employed , they also have healthcare insurance, and in an environment like that, then perhaps, the Govt. could actually focus on real healthcare reform like costs, rather than what some K Street lobby group wants them to focus on.

The major problem of nuclear waste is what to do with it. In fact, one of the biggest (and perhaps the single biggest) expenses of the nuclear power industry could eventually be the storage of nuclear waste. Currently there are several ways in which nuclear waste is stored. Most of these methods are temporary. In most cases a viable long-term solution for waste storage has yet to be found. This is because the time period for storage is so incredibly long, on the order of thousands of years.

In the US a permanent storage site has been selected at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.

The Bane of Nuclear Energy: Nuclear Waste - Storage

Do we really want to transport waste from all over the country to Yucca Mountain on our crumbling infrastructure?

First bf, left me tell you that it's long been my opinion that Yucca Mtn.when it comes to Govt. waste ranks right up there. Yucca Mtn. not only was ill advised many in the commercial nuclear power industry thought it was a gigantic waste of money, which in the end that is exactly what it turned out to be a several billion dollar hole in the ground. Now thre is much promise in re-processing technology of spent fuel and in fact when nuclear fuel is used it still has up to 90% of useable power left if reprocessed correctly and in my opinion rather than digging a massive hole in the ground to store this waste perhaps the best use of money would have been to reasearch and develop and prefect this technology that already exists in France, Japan and many other nations. In fact in some nations spent fuel when it comes to spave concerns is not an issue because they have set out to reprocess it in conjunction when the use of nuclear power as we should. I would invite you to take a look at Adm. Bowman's take on the matter of nuclear waste .

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWzy9mUxVPI[/ame]

 

[keee keee]

God Dam it it must be that dam George Bush again that caused this problem!!!! the new Democrat fix is we have raise your taxes, just forget about all the tax money you have been charged already for this but was mis-spent!!!! Look at most cities and states that are falling apart and are broke, who is running those states I bet the party begins with the letter "D"

 

[Bfgrn]

Now these are not exact numbers, but just take a nuclear power plant, now before you all start beating me up on nuclear power, I'm a strong nuclear power advocate. The average plant employ's between 1000 and 1500 people on a perm. basis and thats just the plant, and does not include the additional 2 to 3000 support people. During the constuction phase a power plant creates somewhere around 15 to 20,000 jobs in all phases of consturction. Now it seems to me and maybe this is being too simple I suppose that knowing this and knowing the benefits in terms of jobs, etc. etc. etc. at least to me thats a real stimulus. What seems to be lost on some, is that when these people are employed , they also have healthcare insurance, and in an environment like that, then perhaps, the Govt. could actually focus on real healthcare reform like costs, rather than what some K Street lobby group wants them to focus on.

The major problem of nuclear waste is what to do with it. In fact, one of the biggest (and perhaps the single biggest) expenses of the nuclear power industry could eventually be the storage of nuclear waste. Currently there are several ways in which nuclear waste is stored. Most of these methods are temporary. In most cases a viable long-term solution for waste storage has yet to be found. This is because the time period for storage is so incredibly long, on the order of thousands of years.

In the US a permanent storage site has been selected at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.

The Bane of Nuclear Energy: Nuclear Waste - Storage

Do we really want to transport waste from all over the country to Yucca Mountain on our crumbling infrastructure?

First bf, left me tell you that it's long been my opinion that Yucca Mtn.when it comes to Govt. waste ranks right up there. Yucca Mtn. not only was ill advised many in the commercial nuclear power industry thought it was a gigantic waste of money, which in the end that is exactly what it turned out to be a several billion dollar hole in the ground. Now thre is much promise in re-processing technology of spent fuel and in fact when nuclear fuel is used it still has up to 90% of useable power left if reprocessed correctly and in my opinion rather than digging a massive hole in the ground to store this waste perhaps the best use of money would have been to reasearch and develop and prefect this technology that already exists in France, Japan and many other nations. In fact in some nations spent fuel when it comes to spave concerns is not an issue because they have set out to reprocess it in conjunction when the use of nuclear power as we should. I would invite you to take a look at Adm. Bowman's take on the matter of nuclear waste .

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWzy9mUxVPI[/ame]

Ironically, the French nuclear program is based on American technology. After experimenting with their own gas-cooled reactors in the 1960s, the French gave up and purchased American Pressurized Water Reactors designed by Westinghouse.

Nuclear waste is an enormously difficult political problem which to date no country has solved. It is, in a sense, the Achilles heel of the nuclear industry. Could this issue strike down France's uniquely successful nuclear program? France's politicians and technocrats are in no doubt. If France is unable to solve this issue, says Mandil, then "I do not see how we can continue our nuclear program."

---
Part of their popularity comes from the fact that scientists and engineers have a much higher status in France than in America. Many high ranking civil servants and government officials trained as scientists and engineers (rather than lawyers, as in the United States), and, unlike in the U.S. where federal administrators are often looked down upon, these technocrats form a special elite. Many have graduated from a few elite schools such as the Ecole Polytechnic. According to Mandil, respect and trust in technocrats is widespread. "For a long time, in families, the good thing for a child to become was an engineer or a scientist, not a lawyer. We like our engineers and our scientists and we are confident in them."

FRONTLINE: nuclear reaction: Why the French Like Nuclear Energy

 

[Navy1960]

Q. Why isn't the U.S. reprocessing?

A. The Carter Administration decided not to reprocess nominally on the grounds that if other countries could be persuaded not to reprocess, the likelihood of nuclear proliferation would be reduced. So far as I know, not one other country has been persuaded, because the economic advantages of reprocessing are so great. The Reagan and Bush Administrations wanted to reprocess, but it would have been politically expensive so they temporized.

Q. What if you don't reprocess?

A. You lose the economic benefit of the plutonium, the spent fuel remains radioactive longer and has to be better guarded, because it contains plutonium. However, there is plenty of uranium for now, so it may not be economic to reprocess at present provided the spent fuel remains available for later reprocessing.

Q. What about breeder reactors?

A. If the reactor design is much more economical of neutrons, enough U-238 can be converted to plutonium so that after a fuel cycle there is more fissionable material than there was in the original fuel rods in the reactor. Such a design is called a breeder reactor. Breeder reactors essentially use U-238 as fuel, and there is 140 times as much of it as there is U-235. The billion year estimates for fuel resources depend on breeder reactors. The French built two of them, the U.S. has a small one, the British built one, the Russians built one and the Japanese are building one
Nuclear Energy is the most certain future source.

I did read the pbs. story though bf on the French where that statement came from and overall it was positive of the French program.

 

[Darkwind]

It is a problem that belongs to the states. They are responsible for their infrastructure.

If it is falling into disrepair, I suggest that the powers that be in each state start to prioritize things or go to the citizens of their state and ask for more money.

This is what happens when the people get to vote money to themselves. They only care about themselves and then blame someone else when the house is falling down around their ear.

Give up some entitlement money and fix your damned bridges morons.