Infrastructure Gap? Look at the Facts. We Spend More Than Europe - Forbes
The U.S.’s fourteenth place ranking in the World Economic Forum’s infrastructure index scarcely bespeaks a national scandal. Luxembourg and Canada rank just above the U.S., and Austria and Denmark rank just below. None of these countries are exactly slouches in the infrastructure category. Among the twenty largest countries, the U.S. ranks second only to Canada. The World Economic Forum index also shows that U.S. infrastructure beats the European Union average by a wide margin! How can that be with the high speed rail and the gleaming Autobahns of the European Union – the envy of our transportation bureaucrats?
Consider another hitch. OECD infrastructure experts find that Europe has too much supply of roads and rail relative to the demand. Yes, they have trains departing every few minutes, but half empty, and do Germans really need five different Autobahns to drive from Munich to Frankfurt? The same OECD experts find that the U.S., Canada, and Australia have built about the amount of infrastructure that fits the demand.
Well, if all else fails, our big government spenders at least can show that we spend little on infrastructure relative to countries that have good infrastructure. We can really catch the U.S. with its pants down by looking at its miserly infrastructure spending.
Get ready for a surprise. According to OECD statistics, the United States spends 3.3 percent of its GDP (2006-2011) on infrastructure investment versus the European Union’s 3.1 percent. With roughly equal GDPs, the United States actually outspends the Europe Union – our model of infrastructure perfection.
