This article at Popular Mechanics is a good demonstration of the way that modern government has really lost its priorities. The sites featured in the article that need to be repaired are just the tip of the iceberg of infrastructure that needs repairs. For too long, government all across the country has wasted lot's of money on fluff like social welfare spending and useless police programs like the war on drugs (not to mention the pork and fraud, waste and abuse). We see the results of this at the federal level readily by the way that Congress just flat out ignores the fact that our payments on the interest of the national debt are roughly equal to about half of the defense budget, and all of that happens while the federal government keeps committing itself to more expenses.

One of the real downsides to modern government is the fact that it is as fickle and attentive to important detail as the public. Most people don't really care about infrastructure unless planes are flying into one another, or their cars are getting swallowed up by potholes. I don't know what the solution to this is or if there even is a solution to it, but I suspect that once again, the American people will get the government that they deserve.