Infrastructure Problems Will Lag as the Government Fails to Act

Infrastructure Problems Will Lag 
as the Government Fails to Act

Well it appears Congress has finally decided to extend funding for the Federal Highway Trust Fund. Though they may have extended the funding they have not fixed the problem of how to fund the Trust Fund. Once again Congress has decided to create potential disaster down the road, by allowing companies to delay contributions to pension funds with the promise of making them up in the future. They are also going to transfer money from the fund established to clean up leaking underground storage tanks, which they state is currently over funded. Providing funding to the trust fund through methods like this are not going to solve the issue of how to adequately fund the Federal Highway Trust Fund. The constant temporary fixes which Congress passes only delay the inevitable. There can be no long-term planning when the highway bill is only extended for 10 months. The politicians in Washington will once again be blaming each other and fighting over how to create funding when next May rolls around.

The United States continues to fall behind other industrialized nations when it comes to our infrastructure. Without the proper infrastructure in place and upgrades made, the United States cannot compete in the world market. Congress, The President and others in Washington continue to tell us that the economy is improving and how much they are doing for us, yet we constantly see hundred year old water lines falling apart, roadways deteriorating, dams falling into disrepair, and a railroad infrastructure which lags behind much of the industrialized world. They could begin the funding by raising the fuel tax, however we won’t want to do that so close to an election, that might just cost someone their office. The lawmakers in Washington no longer care about doing what is right and planning for the future; they simply care about being reelected and keeping their lucrative jobs. I am beginning to wonder what happened to the integrity of the people we elect.

Back here in the real world we perform construction every day. You can see the deterioration of our infrastructure on the news and in the streets where we drive. Some states have decided to make changes to try to improve their infrastructure. I applaud Pennsylvania for passing an infrastructure bill that will hopefully improve the infrastructure of the state and eventually put us in a better position than other states when it comes to moving goods and services and providing jobs. I am sure that there will be some legislators who will lose their jobs over the infrastructure bill that was passed in Pennsylvania. I would like to think that they voted with their conscience to help improve the state and their communities over whether they would keep their job or not. Perhaps that is just wishful thinking, or perhaps it was passed far enough in advance of the election that many people will forget.

Construction and infrastructure improvement provide a tremendous amount of jobs in this country. By constantly repairing and improving our infrastructure the United States can remain a top industrialized country, however time is running short. Our government leaders are constantly concerned about increasing employment for our citizens, yet one of the most important pieces of being an industrialized nation continues to be pushed to the side. I doubt if President Eisenhower ever envisioned the disrepair that our infrastructure has fallen into when he created the federal highway system.

One of the other wastes of our infrastructure dollars is a prevailing or scale wages required to be paid on these projects. As a business owner for nearly 30 years I do not understand the concept of why, just because someone steps foot on a federal government-funded project their wages should increase above what they are currently being paid. I fully advocate paying employees decent wages so that they can live and provide for their families, however doubling and sometimes tripling their wages seems to be ridiculous. I have heard the arguments back and forth both ways. I have spoken to political representatives who have said they are getting a better quality of work by paying the better wages. Specifications are already established and must be maintained, therefore everyone is held to the same standard. The argument for better quality of work is simply a copout as far as I’m concerned. By paying prevailing or scale wages for government projects, many times we increase the cost of those projects by 40 and sometimes 50 percent. Imagine how much more work we could perform and how much more improved our infrastructure could be with those additional monies going back into additional projects. Prevailing or scale wages were established based on union formulas, I believe currently only approximate 12 to14 percent of the private sector is unionized, most of the unions are in the public sector. Therefore the basis of union wages to establish scale and prevailing wages for projects is obsolete.

And then we are facing a lack of qualified workers to perform the tasks related to infrastructure repairs and building. Many companies that I work with and are in related fields are having a difficult time getting qualified applicants for the job openings, which many of us have. The construction industry is willing to train personnel to perform needed skills so that they can grow and have a viable career in the construction field. The United States government is spending billions of dollars on education, yet many applicants applying for jobs lack basic math, reading and writing skills. In my conversation with other business owners, we are all wondering what the education system is doing and why people are permitted to graduate from high school and trade schools without these basic skills. I am here to tell you that there are vast opportunities in the construction trade for people that are willing to apply themselves, have the initiative to study and learn, and be willing to embrace new and different technologies. The construction industry is not simply low-paying jobs and a place for people to go when they can’t find anything else. The construction industry is now a technical industry requiring a vast array of skills, including computer, mathematics, reading and writing, and so much more. Many of these jobs do not require any more than a high school education, and the willingness to take training provided by the employer and the desire to succeed. After a short time in the construction industry with the willingness to study, learn and excel many construction workers make above the average income for the areas in which they work. Perhaps the schools should allow students to use their imagination, not deter them from using their hands and get back to teaching some of the basic skills needed to succeed in the world. If the schools can send us the people with the basic skills we can get them started on a path to a career that will last a lifetime.

Perhaps the time is come for our government, so called leaders to come out and spend some time with us in the real world, leaving their suits, the television crews and all their little liaisons behind. We can show them what truly happens out here in the real world, not in the little bubble they have created in Washington. I am more than happy to extend an invitation to any of them that would like to spend a week in a real-world business and see how it truly operates and the challenges we face. They need to stop looking forward to elections and start looking at what is best for our country and its future. 10 months of funding is not the future, it is a short-term fix which they have become so accustomed to in Washington. Both parties should be ashamed of themselves for kicking the can down the road when it comes to dealing with real-world problems and throwing money at education that is not improving our education system, but simply letting us all behind the rest of the industrialized world. 


Dave E. Gemmill
D. E. Gemmill, Inc. 
www.degemmill.com