IBD: 5 Myths Behind President Obama's Infrastructure Spending Push:

Investor's Business Daily does it again with an outstanding piece on the disinformation about infrastructure spending.  This should be required reading:

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Shortly after the $830 billion stimulus bill was enacted in 2009, President Obama boasted that it included the "largest new investment since President Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System," and said it would "help states create a 21st century infrastructure" and "fuel growth in an industry that's been hard hit."
Now, nearly 2 1/2 years later, Obama wants another $50 billion as part of his American Jobs Act to create jobs and fix "our crumbling infrastructure." But he still seems to buy into several myths about the nation's infrastructure.
• Infrastructure spending is declining: "We have deferred tough decisions," the president said last fall, and "our shortsightedness has come due."
But inflation-adjusted infrastructure spending climbed 23% from 1990 to 2007, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Federal, state and local governments spend a combined total of more than $356 billion a year. It was 2.4% of GDP in 2007, not far from the 3% in 1960, when the U.S. was first building the interstate highway system.
To be sure, groups such as the American Society of Civil Engineers have consistently urged greater spending to improve deficient or obsolete roads, bridges and water supply systems.
• Our infrastructure is falling apart: Touting the new jobs bill, Obama complained about "our crumbling roads and our crumbling bridges." This alarm has been sounded for decades.
In 1988, a Federal Highway Administration official said America faced a looming "bridge crisis." In 1993, President Clinton pushed in vain for $100 billion more infrastructure spending to avoid a "crisis." A 2005 USA Today headline screamed: "Report: Nation's in frastructure crumbling." In 2009, the New York Times reported that "U.S. infrastructure is in dire straits." But the dire warnings never seemed to come true.
"It is crumbling somewhere, but not everywhere," said Samuel Staley, a Reason Foundation transportation expert and associate director at Florida State University's DeVoe Moore Center. "Some states have done really well with their transportation money."
• We're falling behind China: Obama told Congress that we shouldn't "sit back and watch China build newer airports and faster railroads."
Others say the comparison isn't apt, because countries like China and India are pretty much just getting started. Despite all the money they're spending, these countries have horrific traffic problems. Beijing scored 99 out of 100 in IBM's "commuter pain" index; New Delhi scored 81. Far down on the list is Los Angeles at 25 and New York at 19.