I have 0 faith in our governments to carry out any long-term projects that aren't military-related. Like wasn't a trillion dollar infrastructure bill passed a couple years ago? Where has all that money gone?
My town is busy replacing lead service lines, fixing up water mains and building a new treatment system at the water plant. Users are paying a significant share of it, but there's federal infrastructure funding also.
The trick is to claim all projects are military related.
"Yes, Senator, upgrading the covered wooden bridge to Sleepy Hollow is essential. It cannot presently bear the weight of a column of M1 Abrams tanks, such as would be required to defend the nation from invasion. Let it not be said you are weak on defence, Senator!" /s
I mean, the federal government funded the Interstate Highway System largely to be able to get troops from one end of the country to the other, now someone just needs to make a similar case for bridges and high-speed rail.
As per the third paragraph of the article: "In New York, Algonquin Power won a $42.9 million grant to install devices that automatically redeploy power when lines are overloaded. Virginia’s Dominion Energy won $33.7 million for a project that includes devices that will let it adjust power distribution in response to changing conditions on the grid. The funds are part of a $3.5 billion program for grid-boosting projects the Energy Department rolled out in October."
When you adjust for inflation, the price tag of the 2021 infrastructure bill is twice the construction cost of the entire Interstate Highway System. Are we getting two entire Interstate Highway Systems worth of infrastructure for our money? If not, I think that's the first problem that needs to be solved.
The BIL alone has already funded ~30,000 Road/Bridge projects totaling $95 billion so far, plus hundreds of billions more on other infrastructure. Would you mind pointing to the specific working group funding that you have an issue with and which specific bridges need repairs but had their funding rejected?
I mean, for just one example, the DoT awarded $600 million to replace the I-5 bridge between Washington and Oregon. I don't pretend the funding is perfect but it is reaching real projects.