Paul Ciszek replied:

Imagine a foreign country called Dumfukistan. This country is inhabited by religious fanatics who believe that the world will end any day now. This is reflected in many of their policies, as their government has no problem with borrowing a billion dollars a day with no intention of ever paying it back (indeed, insists that “deficits don’t matter), sees no point in maintaining any infrastructure, and behaves abroad as if they don’t expect to ever have to deal with the consequences of their actions. The people are so backward that they use their own medieval unit system, not shared by anyone else, that doesn’t even have units for things like voltage or current. Their science education is so piss-poor that most of their adult population is unaware that the Earth orbits around the sun, thinks the universe is only a few thousand years old, and even the majority of their college educated individuals cannot tell you (correctly) why summer is warmer than winter.

Now, if you found yourself holding a few million Dumfukistan quatloos, would you consider them a sound financial instrument and hold on to them, or would you try to convert them to something else while you still could?

While I have a lot of respect for Caltrans, I don’t actually find that very reassuring.  I suspect that if the officials in Minnesota had been asked a week before the collapse, they would have stated that their bridge was safe.

On the other hand, the bridges in the bay area do get a lot of scrutiny for seismic safety.

Politicians are quick to spend money to build new bridges and other infrastructure, but there always seems to be a shortfall of funds for maintenance.  I’ve heard one person propose that the government should not build any new infrastructure without establishing an endowment for maintenance.  While that might be a good idea, I doubt it will ever happen.  People want to get new things built now and as inexpensively as possible, and let the future worry about maintenance.

These figures are from the Skeptical Optimist’s pie chart based on Treasury data from January 2007.  Note that the percentages above exclude intragovernmental debt, which the U.S. government owes itself.