But we didn’t create a deficit for ourselves during this time.

The United States is supposed to be the greatest and most powerful nation in the world. But we are trillions of dollars in debt. We are showing our poor decisions.

The extraneous spending MUST stop. What we ARE spending money on needs to be what’s important to move our nation forward: infrastructure.

American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) President & CEO Pete Ruane agrees with me that infrastructure is paramount.

Following the state of the State of the Union address, Ruane released a written press statement noting that the association appreciates Obama highlighting  “the link between a strong, properly-functioning transportation infrastructure network and economic competitiveness.”

But now it’s time to “start developing real solutions to address America’s infrastructure deficit.”

Ruane noted: “An overwhelming majority of Congress voted last year to support final passage of the highway and transit bill, MAP-21.  The law’s program consolidation, meaningful policy reforms and accountability provisions provide the foundation for building a much broader infrastructure investment package.  MAP-21, however, only provided enough financial resources to maintain highway and transit investment at current levels for two years; a scenario that does nothing to reduce the increasing economic costs and personal toll from worsening traffic congestion.

To read more about this, see the post, “Let’s stop spending money extraneously and solve the infrastructure problem,” on the “Aggregates Insider” blog on Aggregates Manager magazine’s website. Aggregates Manager is a sister publication to Better Roads.