Inbound Perfect Storm Threatens Hope for Crumbling Infrastructure

Our infrastructure is not only buckling under its own age and unabated use. Rising construction costs and pressing demands for repair in disaster areas around the country are converging on slowly constricting budgets:

The costs have added to what has become an increasingly bleak economic forecast for many states and local governments. At least 25 states expect to have budget deficits in 2009, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which estimates the combined budget shortfall for 17 of the states at $31 billion or more. Many cities, too, see difficult times ahead as revenues wane and costs increase for wages, pensions and health care.

We are in need of leaders with Rooseveltian proclivities for re-building America.