Yes and no. The US is rich enough to where, yes, we could raise taxes and fund infrastructure better.
At the same time, some forms of infrastructure have been over-built. We've demonstrated a massive preference for (wide) roads over walking/biking/transit, and it turns out supporting mostly single-occupancy vehicles as the default transportation mode is extremely expensive.
For example, take this blog post analyzing why a poor area of town is a better revenue generator than a more affluent area; part of the reason is that the older, poorer area just has narrower roads, which reduced upkeep costs: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/10/poor-neighborh...
It should go without saying, but having low-density design throughout our country drastically raises infrastructure costs. The roads needs to be longer (and wider), you need more miles of pipes, and electric wire, and fiber, etc.
At the same time, some forms of infrastructure have been over-built. We've demonstrated a massive preference for (wide) roads over walking/biking/transit, and it turns out supporting mostly single-occupancy vehicles as the default transportation mode is extremely expensive.
For example, take this blog post analyzing why a poor area of town is a better revenue generator than a more affluent area; part of the reason is that the older, poorer area just has narrower roads, which reduced upkeep costs: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/10/poor-neighborh...
It should go without saying, but having low-density design throughout our country drastically raises infrastructure costs. The roads needs to be longer (and wider), you need more miles of pipes, and electric wire, and fiber, etc.