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Ian Explains: Will US infrastructure finally be fixed?
mono | GZERO World

Ian Explains: Will US infrastructure finally be fixed?

At 6:05pm on a sweltering August evening in 2007, rush hour traffic was crawling across Minneapolis’ I-35 bridge. Then, the bridge began to shake.

Thirteen people died and 140 more were injured when Minnesota’s third-busiest bridge collapsed, plunging vehicles ten stories down into the rushing Mississippi river and leaving one school bus with 63 children teetering against a guardrail. An NTSB investigation later attributed the collapse to 300 tons of construction materials that had been placed on a 40-year-old design flaw in the bridge’s original construction. But while the flaw had gone undetected for decades, inspectors HAD rated the bridge in poor condition for 17 straight years.

The truth is that bridges in America fall down all the time, Ian Bremmer explains on GZERO World.

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The road to repair: Pete Buttigieg & crumbling US infrastructure
The road to repair: Pete Buttigieg & crumbling US infrastructure | GZERO World

The road to repair: Pete Buttigieg & crumbling US infrastructure

There's no sugarcoating it. America needs work. Not just when it comes to the state of democracy, either. A 2022 report found that 43,000 US bridges are “structurally deficient.” The report also found that those same bridges are crossed 168 million times a day. At the current rate, it would take 30 years to fix all of the country’s structurally deficient bridges. Do you feel lucky?

It's not a question Americans particularly want to ask themselves on every morning commute or summer road trip. The richest country in the history of the world should be able to keep its infrastructure updated and its roads intact. Globally, of course, the number of faulty bridges is much higher, but at least here in the United States, things may be starting to change. On November 6, 2021, Congress passed the Biden administration’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, which includes $550 billion for America’s roads, bridges, mass transit, rail, airports, and ports. On GZERO World, Secretary Pete Buttigieg discusses what he has called "the single largest dedicated bridge investment since the construction of the Interstate highway system."

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Podcast: Rebuilding American infrastructure with Pete Buttigieg

Transcript

Listen: In this episode of the GZERO World podcast, we’re bridging America’s divides, and we mean that literally. It’s infrastructure week on GZERO World, and Ian Bremmer is talking to Mr. Infrastructure himself: US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. They discuss the state of America’s roads, bridges, and tunnels, as well as the landmark legislation meant to upgrade them all. They also talk about how major technological advances in electric vehicles and industrial shipping are poised to change the ways we move, and the things we ship. Oh, and they talk 2024 and why the Secretary recently changed his permanent address to that swing state, Michigan.

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Biden's rocky first year
Biden's Rocky First Year | Quick Take | GZERO Media

Biden's rocky first year

Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:

It's been a very tough week in the United States, both because in New York, and, of course, the glad tidings of New York very quickly come to a theater near you, are increasingly concerns about breakthrough COVID cases. The potential for hospitals to get overwhelmed, even if omicron turns out to be significantly milder than previous variants. If you have 10X the number of cases and one-third the hospitalizations, you're still going to overwhelm hospitals. And what happens in New York does not stay in New York. It's not like Vegas here. It goes to the rest of the world and it goes across the country.

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What's next for infrastructure and Biden's Build Back Better plan?
What’s Next for Infrastructure & Biden’s Build Back Better Plan? | US Politics In :60 | GZERO Media

What's next for infrastructure and Biden's Build Back Better plan?

Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, shares insights on US politics:

Now that President Biden has signed the bipartisan infrastructure bill, what's next for infrastructure?

The President this week signed a significant new investment in infrastructure, about $550 billion beyond the money that's already being spent in the baseline levels for the US infrastructure, and this is a big investment. It about doubles how much money the US spends on infrastructure over the next five years, and the money's going to go to all kinds of places, roads, bridges, tunnels, water projects, broadband deployment for Americans, climate resiliency, electric vehicles. There's a lot of different things that are going to be funded by this pot of cash.

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Biden's infrastructure bill, explained

Biden's infrastructure bill, explained

Infrastructure week, at last.

For 4 years, the Trump administration promised and failed to deliver transformational investments in the nation’s physical infrastructure. Even before 45, Congress’s chronic inability to pass an infrastructure bill despite high levels of public support had become a running joke in Washington.

That ended late last Friday when Congress passed the first of two major fiscal bills President Joe Biden campaigned on. “We did something that’s long overdue, that long has been talked about in Washington, but never actually been done,” Biden said on Saturday.

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Republican 2021 election wins
Republican 2021 Election Wins | US Politics :60 | GZERO Media

Republican 2021 election wins

Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, discusses the results of the US election on November 2.

What was the warning to Democrats in this week's governor's races?

Yesterday's elections in Virginia and New Jersey were a really bad sign for Democrats. Biden won both those states by 10 points and 16 points respectively just last year. In Virginia, the Republicans are going to win not only the governorship, but the top three spots in state government and take one of the houses of the legislature. And New Jersey, the Republican was way behind in the polls, but came within a hair's breadth of actually winning it.

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