Niall McCarthy – Forbes: “One of President Trump’s key aims during his time in office is overhauling and revitalizing America’s potholed roads, disheveled railways and creaking bridges. Illinois and Connecticut have the worst roads in the nation (73 percent of roads in each state are in poor or mediocre condition) while according to the government, 70,000 bridges (one out of every nine) are classified as being structurally deficient. Frequently dismissed as a boring topic, infrastructure’s importance to the U.S. economy is actually mindboggling. Deteriorating infrastructure will result in higher business costs for a multitude of reasons. These include goods being more expensive to produce and transport as well as business-related travel being more expensive and unreliable. Once businesses become more inefficient, costs will rise, productivity will fall and GDP will drop. According to a report from the American Society Of Civil Engineers, the U.S. economy is expected to lose just under $4 trillion in GDP between 2016 and 2025 if investment gaps are not addressed. This could hit $14 trillion by 2040 if the nation’s aging roads, railways and bridges are left to decay even further…”