It’s starting to. Remember that bridge in Pittsburgh that spontaneously collapsed? I’m sure there are many other lesser known examples.

The PA bridge collapsed despite a recent (couple years prior) gas tax hike that was supposedly going to be used to prevent exactly that kind of outcome.

Throwing money at the problem doesn't work if you suck at throwing and can't hit the problem.

>> Its because public spending on infrastructure is "socialism" and it is better to give loans to private companies and let "the free market" fix the infrastructure; any day now.

nonsense. It's the governments job to do this maintenance. There are entire departments dedicated to it. The problem is that they are underfunded, in part because the money goes ummm somewhere else, and because for some reason taxing people or business enough to cover state expenses is considered bad practice.

Yes, introduce use taxes that fully pay for such infrastructure. Stop overbuilding everything--no reason to make a 4 lane overpass when 2 is sufficient.

What’s the cost difference in % from building 2 vs 4? What happens if in 10 years you really do need 4? Sometimes it’s smart to overbuild things with a long lifespan.

All good questions that are not actually answered when they make those decisions. What does 'need' mean? What is the maintenance cost of maintaining two lanes of road that might be needed in 10 years?

Often road widening is based on projections (which are almost universally wrong): https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/2021/09/09/every-traffic-pr...

The post you're responding to was pretty obviously sarcastic... Note their use of quotes around "socialism" and "the free market, and the phrase "any day now".

So the other poster was making the exact same point that you made (unsarcastically), but it sounds like you may not have realized that? At any rate, you both seem to be largely in agreement about the current state of affairs.

Our "state expenses" in no way reflect the immediate needs of the people or any kind of popular democratic will. The average citizen in the US gets extremely little from the state relative to the taxes they pay, so opposing higher taxes is very rational.

Agreed. It's not the amount of taxes per se, it's the (perception of) value. Few are favor of higher taxes because they currently feel that they get (next to) nothing from what they pay now. Who wants to pay more for more nothing??

> Few are favor of higher taxes because they currently feel that they get (next to) nothing from what they pay now. Who wants to pay more for more nothing??

Interestingly, a lot of these people also aren't in favor of paying less for less nothing.

You're going to have to unpack that please. Where are ppl against lower taxes?

If public spending is socialism then why don't states that don't the one party blue states that don't get antsy about "socialism" have great infrastructure?

No blue state is actually okay with socialism at any higher level. The Democrat party leadership hates left-wing politics. Just the other day Pete Buttigieg was trying to explain how we can't solve baby formula problems the socialist way so children have to starve for the sake of factory owners:

> Biden’s secretary of transportation, Pete Buttigieg, has argued that this kind of socialist experiment would be unacceptable — even to stop babies from starving to death. “Let’s be very clear,” Buttigieg told CBS, “This is a capitalist country. The government does not make baby formula, nor should it. Companies make baby formula.”

(For the record, "Socialism" would not fix the US's bridge or baby formula woes because they are both the results of decades of neglect and bad policy that can't be undone in a year.)

I'm also a bit confused why that came up, considering he's head of transportation. Do they also concern themselves with manufacturing?

He had previous in the last couple of days mentioned that him and his husband were unable to find formula for their baby so the question likely came up again since he already had spoken out on the matter. I don't know the context in which it came up days ago. Perhaps it was in a more open ended "get to know" type of interview he was doing.

Biden's approval numbers are absolute garbage - I suspect he'll have a contested run in 2024 (or "voluntarily" decline to run) and all the sharks want to start getting their names in the headlines.

Right now I don’t see any way he’ll run knowing he won’t win.

Hubris is a hell of a drug.

> “This is a capitalist country. The government does not make baby formula, nor should it. Companies make baby formula.”

Singapore would disagree that government manufacture of baby formula represents socialism. The government can do what it wants without impairing the market. Where socialism comes in is when the government intervenes to protect its baby formula industry, by barring competitors from participating in the market or by subsidizing its own formula manufacture with tax revenues.

Are interstates recipients of Federal funding or only state funding?

> If public spending is socialism

It isn't, my comment is a jab on US politics and discourse; though neoliberalism and "minarchism" has corroded the existing infrastructure through "austerity" (money redirection towards forever wars and imperialism) and red-scare tactics.