Our Crumbling Infrastructure

I had some very similar thoughts to this and this after I learned of the Mississippi River Bridge collapse in Minnesota on Wednesday. For a system that began construction over fifty years ago it was really only a matter of time before some major failure was going to occur. Situations like this and the older levees in New Orleans certainly point to a need for reassessment of priorities. I don't like paying federal income taxes one bit, but they are necessary if for no other reason than the maintenance of the vast network of roads in the United States. I hate to rely on the federal government to do anything right, but if they are going to pay for the construction of a bridge, levee, etc., the onus is on them to maintain the structure. We are doing a lot of things all over the world to protect our country and ourselves, but I am really starting to think that we should be spending a lot more of that money on protecting ourselves here at home. What is it that statistics say? Most accidents occur withing ten miles of the home? I think it's time we start spending money on bridges to somewhere rather than "bridges to nowhere."