You would think that two major disasters with construction collapses in a week would be enough to spur politicians to action on infrastructure...especially when one of them occurs just a few miles from the Capitol.
A pedestrian bridge over I-295, which runs through Washington, DC parsllel to the Anacostia River and Capitol Street, fell onto that highway on Wednesday (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/06/23/bridge-collapse-washington-dc-interstate-295/5327504001/). And yesterday, at 1:30 AM, half of a condominium high rise in Surfside, FL--a suburb of Miami Beach--pancaked into its own basement. At least 99 people are still missing, and four are known to be dead (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/06/25/miami-florida-residential-building-collapse-what-we-know/5338496001/).
But they are still haggling over the infrastructure bill in Congress--how big should it be, what constitutes "infrastructure", how to pay for it. Odd how those questions seldom arise in discussions of defense spending, isn't it? Both of Florida's senators are Republicans; 16 of its 26 representatives are Republicans...and yet in the face of these two tragedies, all of them remain opposed to the bipartisan bill negotiated by their colleagues and even more opposed to the larger one proposed by the Democrats alone.
Will it take learning that one of their own relatives was killed or injured in such an event to change their minds?
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