It'd be wonderful if it were indeed unnecessary. But the human species evolved in an environment where it was adaptive to seek power and dominance. Many individuals, groups, and nations still engage in that quest — even though in time it could lead to a very bad outcome (and might explain the Fermi Paradox [0]).
We could, of course, accept that others will achieve superior weaponry and that in due course we'll surrender to them. That doesn't sound so appealing. Unfortunately, the only practicable alternative, at least for now, appears to be to continue to compete in the arms race. It'd doubly unfortunate because there are so many more-constructive things that we'd prefer to spend the money on — if we had the choice.
EDIT: An analogy: I live in Houston, very near the Texas Gulf Coast. It'd be great if we didn't have to spend so much money on hurricane- and flood preparation; it's easy to think of better uses for that money. But if we didn't spend the money on hurricane- and flood prep, then we'd risk losing much of what we do have, to forces over which we have no control (at least not in the near term).
> A recent Business Roundtable study found that $737 billion in public investment over 10 years would set us on the path toward reviving our national infrastructure. While those numbers seem daunting, the report also showed that every additional dollar invested in infrastructure delivers roughly $3.70 in additional economic growth over a period of 20 years.
https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/433538-infr...
And being labour and trade intensive means you can campaign on creating jobs for your blue collared workers.
The bridges and roads around me in middle TN are well maintained. These are funded by local government resources, right?
When people lobbied for their representatives to support their pet cause, traditionally the best way they had to do this was to issue an earmark as part of some bill. Earmarks are not heavily fought by other representative because they do not give federal money to a state, rather they are the federal government forcing a state to spend some of their own money on something they wouldn't otherwise have done. The problem with this is that unless the local government decides to overbudget for this and run a surplus every year, this money comes from somewhere. Typically something boring that people don't care about, like infrastructure maintenance. That is, people don't care about it until it starts to actually fail...
Then congressional earmarks got banned. Only, things are actually worse now, because it turns out the political horse trading around earmarks was the only reason representatives have to compromise across party lines, instead of always holding a hard line on the issues their supporters want. This is the direct cause of the current political gridlock.
Yes.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/more-50-000-american-br...
https://www.statista.com/chart/12737/thousands-of-american-b...
Generally towns and states rely on federal funding for a significant part of road and bridge maintenance. Generally, they've been falling behind. Most states have long lists of bridges that they know are not really safe to drive on any more.