A broken budget process must be fixed if Congress is going to finally confront and fix the nation’s ailing infrastructure, according to a new statement released by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
“For decades, Congress has repeatedly failed to pass a budget on time, speeding toward budget deadlines as if we have miles of roadway ahead of us, when in reality, we’re laying down roadway as we are driving over it. This has only led to repeated crises—our government has shut down 20 times since 1976,” ASCE staff members point out.
“If this were a bridge, we’d rate it as structurally deficient,”
The statement, written on behalf of the staff by Brian Pallasch, managing director of ASCE’s Government Relations and Infrastructure Initiatives, says Congress has failed to confront and correct the real problem: fixing the budget.
“I view this fundamentally as an engineering issue, and engineering problems are solvable. With enough hard work and smart planning, engineers can reinforce a levee, repair a bridge, or build a road that stands the test of time. Legislative problems are solvable, too, so long as you work together to fix them,” Pallasch writes in the statement posted March 1 on ASCE’s website.
He tells of partnering with a bipartisan coalition of budget and policy experts to create a blueprint for what these reforms could and should look like.
