TWIN CRISES: IMMIGRATION AND BRIDGE INFRASTRUCTRE
By Frosty Wooldridge
April 27, 2009
NewsWithViews.com
In every city across America these days—rotting bridges, broken highways and most infrastructure decay at alarming rates of speed. With everything in this series, our nation grows so fast, it cannot repair the foundation on which that growth depends.
When we talked about the electrical grid, we discovered it would cost taxpayers $142 billion in 40 years to add enough power grids to support 142 million added people. It costs $1 billion per one million people added to the USA. When I try to wrap my mind around the costs, my head hurts.
In 2007, a wakeup bell, concerning our eroding Interstate system, slammed into the national consciousness. The eight lane bridge on I-35 through Minneapolis, spanning the Mississippi River collapsed, in a deadly nightmare come to life. Thirteen people died and 100 suffered injuries.
“The Twin Crises: Immigration and Infrastructure” by www.thesocialcontract.com, Volume XIX, No.2, pages 14-16, Winter 2009, by Edwin S. Rubenstein—addresses bridge infrastructure in America.
Mary Peters, U.S. Secretary of Transportation, said, “Bridges in America should not fall down.”
Unfortunately, not known by the general public, 1,500 U.S. bridges collapsed between 1966 and 2005. More than 70,000 bridges are rated structurally deficient. Most distressing, they carry 300 million vehicles per day.
“As of 2003, 27.1 percent of the nation’s bridges were structurally deficient or functionally obsolete,” Rubenstein said. “In that year, however, one in three urban bridges—a much higher rate than the national average—was in those categories.”
What does immigration have to do with bridges? For a sobering understanding of what caused the United States to grow by 100 million people in 40 years, the reason originates from the 1965 Immigration Reform Act that opened America’s borders to full scale 1.1 to 1.5 million immigrants annually.
While carrying for them and their needs by taxpayer money, their numbers exploded across every state. Infrastructure could not be maintained at a safe level. Big cities cannot cope with the massive population loading.
When you add to the mix, a whopping $346 billion annually in costs just to keep up with the 20 million illegal alien migrant load, you can see why our infrastructure crumbles before our eyes.
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“It would cost $9.4 billion a year for 20 years to repair all substandard bridges,” Rubenstein said. “In a separate report, the Federal Highway Administration says the backlog of needed bridge repairs would take at least $55 billion.”
How can the U.S. reduce the costs of one condition to allow money funneled into infrastructure repair?
“Reducing the demand for such projects—by population and immigration controls—may be the best alternative,” said Rubenstein.
Does Rubenstein pick on immigrants? “Immigrants are poorer, pay less taxes, and are more likely to receive public benefits than natives and that negative will increase as the share of immigrants in the population increases,” Rubenstein said. “The average immigrant household generates, federal, state and local, fiscal deficits of $7,806.00. There are 36 million immigrants living in nine million household, so the aggregate deficit attributable to immigrants adds up to $70.3 billion annually.”
California leads the nation with 10 million legal immigrants and four million criminal alien migrants. In 2004, the state transferred $3.1 billion out of the transportation fund to the general fund to care for legal and illegal immigrants in various social programs. Sobering reality: 38 of the nation’s 50 most heavily trafficked bridges deemed structurally deficient are located in California. Those bridges receive 27 million crossings daily.
During the rebuilding of the south after Hurricane Katrina, construction companies hired thousands of criminal aliens with bogus Social Security cards in lieu of qualified American workers.
“The owner of Tarrasco Steel, a company that supplied workers for the Biloxi Bay Bridge, was arrested and charged with hiring immigrants in three states,” Rubenstein said. “They lacked valid welding certifications attesting to their competence for the job.”
In the end, terrorism threats don’t compare with the danger of catastrophic infrastructure failure due to cheap, illegal, incompetent criminal alien labor.
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With the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars continuing into perpetuity at a cost of $12 billion monthly, we face horrific infrastructure crises exposed by the Rubenstein report—without any ability to fund rebuilding our own country. You almost cannot help wondering if you and your loved ones will be crossing one of those bridges that most certainly will collapse in the coming years.
Listen to Frosty Wooldridge on Wednesdays as he interviews top national leaders on his radio show "Connecting the Dots" at www.themicroeffect.com at 6:00 PM Mountain Time. Adjust tuning in to your time zone.
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