Congressional Republicans in 2011 blocked the American Jobs Act, which included some desperately needed funds for infrastructure improvements. But even the money in that bill would have been a drop in the proverbial bucket when it comes to America’s infrastructure needs.

According to a new report from the American Society of Civil Engineers, America’s infrastructure deficit stands at $1.6 trillion and will grow to $2.75 trillion over the next decade, costing the country trillions of dollars in wasted economic potential and millions of jobs:

[T]he consequences of infrastructure shortfalls differ by each system. With degrading surface transportation, trips can still be made, but they would take longer and be less reliable, and travel could be less safe. Declining airport and marine port infrastructure directly impacts the nation’s ability to import and export goods efficiently, driving up costs to U.S. consumers.

Overall, if the investment gap is not addressed throughout the nation’s infrastructure sectors, by 2020, the economy is expected to lose almost $1 trillion in business sales, resulting in a loss of 3.5 million jobs. Moreover, if current trends are not reversed, the cumulative cost to the U.S. economy from 2012–2020 will be more than $3.1 trillion in GDP and $1.1 trillion in total trade.

A recent study found that infrastructure investments provide a major boost to the economy, but public investment has plunged since the Great Recession (even as the U.S. is paying record low rates to borrow money).

Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell (R) was on Fox News today to discuss his new plan to shift the cost of highway construction from drivers to the poor, which he will accomplish by eliminating his state’s gas tax and replacing it with an expanded and increased sales tax. McDonnell called the idea a “new, innovative” way for his state to address its transportation shortfall:

Some have suggested that is why the gasoline tax is good, because people buy less gas and then the air is clean. That’s not the policy reason. You tax things to raise revenue to provide government services, and so that’s is the purpose of it, not to create those kinds of policies. But Neil, the whole goal here is to create a way to have a sustainable method of funding our roads and bridges and other transportation assets for the future so we can create more jobs, so that businesses will come and locate here, so entrepreneurs will start up here, so families can spend more time with their children, parents. That is the whole goal and do it in a way consistent with conservative principles. Look, it’s a different idea. We shouldn’t be afraid of new innovative ideas.

Watch it:

McDonnell’s plan will result in the cost of highways being borne by low-income Virginians — as the sales tax disproportionately affects those at the bottom of the income scale who are more likely to spend all or most of their income — and by those who use mass transit, walk or bike. It lets out-of-state drivers who use Virginia’s roads off without paying a single cent. As the Washington Post’s Robert McCartney wrote, “the gas tax is a nearly ideal way to fund highways. It’s borne by the people who use highways. It penalizes fossil fuel use and thus is environmentally friendly. Out-of-state drivers, rather than Virginians, pay a sizable chunk of it.”

Virginia already has a regressive tax system, with the richest 1 percent paying a 5.2 percent effective tax rate, while the poorest Virginians (those making less than $19,000) pay 8.8 percent, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Increasing the sales tax is only going to make that disparity worse, while making those who don’t use the state’s highways pay more for their upkeep.

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R), seeking to address a looming shortfall in his state’s transportation funds, has proposed a plan to boost transportation funding by repealing the state’s gas tax and replacing it with increased sales taxes and a surcharge on alternative-fuel vehicles, the Washington Post reports:

Gov. Robert F. McDonnell proposed Tuesday an ambitious overhaul of how Virginia pays for roads, rail and transit, including eliminating the gas tax and replacing it with an increase in the sales tax.

The overall plan, which would raise an estimated $3.1 billion over five years, also would increase vehicle-registration fees and add an annual $100 charge for drivers of alternative-fuel cars. McDonnell’s proposal calls for a increase in the state’s sales tax from 5 percent to 5.8 percent and projects using $1 billion in Internet sales tax revenue from legislation pending in Congress.

While McDonnell’s plan would raise revenues, it would do so in an assortment of wrong-headed ways. It would shift more of the tax burden to low-income Virginians, since sales taxes are inherently regressive (low- and middle-income earners spend a larger portion of their incomes than do the wealthy). The sales tax would still exempt gasoline while being applied to groceries. And McDonnell can’t count internet sales tax as a definite, since it’s still unclear whether that authority will be granted by Congress.

The shift would also mean that visitors who stop to fill up their gas tanks in the state would still get the benefit of using the roads without paying taxes that support them. It also incentivizes the highway system, a perverse goal considering the bulk of the state’s transportation costs come from Northern Virginia, where there is already a public transportation system that would better serve Virginians if it was made even more robust. And it shifts costs to walkers, bikers, and public transportation users, who would be just as responsible for paying for roads as drivers.

If McDonnell is already willing to abandon his no-tax pledge to fund transportation, there are better ways to do it. He could raise the gas tax, which is currently bringing in less money per gallon of gas than at any time in its history. Or he could close corporate tax loopholes, which drain $12.5 billion a year — four times the amount of revenue his plan raises — from the state’s coffers.

Americans are relying more on public transportation than ever before, according to a report released Monday by the American Public Transportation Association. The rate of ridership has increased steadily in the last two years, with a 2.6 percent bump (or 7.9 billion trips) over the first three quarters of 2012.

Last year saw the second highest annual ridership since 1957, and the momentum seems to be growing. All forms of public transit, from buses to heavy rail like Amtrak, saw increases in ridership from January to September this year. Heavier use of public transit cuts down on use of fuel, carbon emissions, and congestion, while saving commuters time and money.

This encouraging trend toward public transit, however, could be easily stifled by Congress. Transportation funding is in dire straits, as APTA President Michael Melaniphy noted:

As Congress works to resolve our country’s deficit problem, it also needs to work to resolve the transportation deficit. Otherwise public transit and highway funding will be facing an annual $15 billion shortfall in the next 10 years. We continue to see that in areas where the local economy is improving and new jobs are being added, public transportation ridership is up. This makes sense since nearly 60 percent of the trips taken on public transportation are for work commutes. Public transit service is an important resource for employees and employers as it is instrumental in helping people travel to their jobs.

Though more and more people are relying on public transportation to get to work, Republicans are intent on further bankrupting these systems. The House GOP released a transportation bill in February that would have eliminated funding for mass transit systems, disproportionately hurting low-income urban communities for whom public transportation systems are the only way to get around. The bill failed, but Republicans continue to call for cuts to federal spending on transportation.

If a deal cannot be reached to avert the discretionary spending cuts in the so-called fiscal cliff next year, crucial public transportation programs will be essentially de-funded. One of the programs in danger is the Federal Transit Administration’s New Starts Program, which awards grants for major projects like Washington’s metro line to Dulles International Airport and the Bay Area’s new line to the Oakland International Airport. Amtrak, which suffered serious damages from Hurricane Sandy in October, would lose $131 million. An austerity budget like the one proposed by Republicans could sabotage a steadily growing industry and cut off whole communities that are increasingly relying on mass transit systems.

At Naked Capitalism, Yves Smith notes that the anticipated lengthy shutdown of New York City’s subway in the wake of Hurricane Sandy is likely to hit low-income workers the hardest:

What is going to happen to these people for the week or more while the subway is put back into service? The five boroughs has income disparity as high as China. Many of these people are modestly paid hourly workers, and some will be hit hard by the loss of even a week of income. These are the people you might or might not notice, yet are critical to the functioning of the city: the janitors, the cooks and delivery men, the people who run newsstands and dry cleaners and cobblers and food carts, the people who do secretarial and clerical work in businesses large and small throughout the city.

This is true not just in New York City, but most places that mass transit has been affected by the storm. “The costs of owning and operating a vehicle are such that ten percent of American households in the nation’s largest metro areas do not have access to a private vehicle,” according to a report by the Brookings Institution. “Compared to their car-owning counterparts, zero-vehicle households are more likely to earn low incomes, live in cities, and take public transportation to work.”

And transportation closures also disproportionately affect minorities. As the research organization PolicyLink has found, “nineteen percent of African Americans and 13.7 percent of Latinos lack access to automobiles, compared with 4.6 percent of whites. Poverty complicates the problem: 33 percent of poor African Americans and 25 percent of poor Latinos lack automobile access, compared with 12.1 percent of poor whites.”

Lack of mass transit is increasingly preventing low-income workers from accessing jobs. Of course, there’s nothing to do about a hurricane wreaking havoc with the mass transit system, but it shows just how important those systems are to the least fortunate workers.

Since 2000, middle class incomes and wages have essentially been stagnant; that period has been called a “lost decade” for the middle class. Meanwhile, some costs have skyrocketed. According to a new report from the Center for Housing Policy and the Center for Neighborhood Technology, rising costs for housing and transportation have squeezed the middle class over the last 12 years, rising by 44 percent. As the report shows:

– Housing and transportation costs have gone up faster than incomes for American households. Since 2000, combined housing and transportation costs have risen 44 percent in the 25 largest U.S. metros, while household incomes have risen only 25 percent. That means that for every dollar household incomes have gone up, housing and transportation costs have risen about $1.75, cutting into wealth, savings and even budgets for essentials.

– Moderate-income households spend a disproportionate share of income for housing and transportation. For households earning 50 to 100 percent of the median income of their metropolitan area, nearly three-fifths (59 percent) of income goes to housing and transportation costs. For these households, the growing “costs of place” are particularly burdensome, leaving little for necessary expenses such as food, education and health care.

This chart compares the rising cost of housing and transportation to income, in non-inflation adjusted dollars:

Another recent study found that the U.S. transportation system does a miserable job connecting workers to jobs. Republicans, meanwhile, are trying to cut the few mass transit investments that the U.S. is making.

Amtrak, the federally-subsidized passenger rail that runs across the country, experienced a 3.5 percent jump in ridership last fiscal year, with a total of 31.2 million passengers taking the train. More people rode Amtrak trains last year than any time since 1971.

But despite the growth in rides (and the subsequent jump in profits, as revenue from tickets grew 6.8 percent), the Republican party sees Amtrak as an unprofitable venture, and called in their platform to privatize it entirely, a move that would likely cut off train service to rural Americans who don’t live on high-frequency train routes.

In fact, the National Association of Railroad Passengers believes privatization “would be tantamount to shutting down the entire Amtrak network, because the remaining routes could not cover the system’s overhead costs.”

Which isn’t to say that the system is perfect as-is. Many of the trains on Amtrak lines are more than 30 years old. Even those trains in top condition are slowed by other failing infrastructure, such as America’s crumbling bridges.

But investment, the opposite of privatization, might actually be the better option. America’s construction sector has been flat lining as the rest of the economy recovers, and a long term project to upgrade the rails would likely bring job growth to that sector:

The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that “more than $200 billion is needed through 2035 to accommodate anticipated growth” of railroad use.

It’s proven that such investment creates jobs. The Economic Policy Institute studied a single project in Los Angeles and found that, simply on the issue of investment in new trains, “a $1.1 billion purchase of transit railcars from U.S. producers could generate as many as 8,200 jobs.”

While states across the country are facing crunched budgets and struggling to reduce unemployment and put people back to work, they are sitting on more than $470 million in unspent transportation funds meant to pay for road, highway, and other infrastructure projects, the Dept. of Transportation said last Friday. In an effort to speed up spending ”that will create jobs and help improve transportation,” the Obama administration said it would free up those funds for other projects if they aren’t used in the 2013 fiscal year.

Roughly $473 million in funds that were earmarked in 2003 to 2006 appropriations packages remain unspent by states, according to DOT. As this chart from Transportation Nation shows, Alabama ($51.5 million) and California ($43.1 million) lead the nation in unspent funds, and three other states have at least $28 million in transportation money that has not been spent:

In a release Friday, President Obama and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced that the funds would be freed up for transportation projects other than those for which they were specifically earmarked. If states fail to spend the money or re-obligate it to other projects by the end of the 2013 fiscal year, it will be released for use in other states. “We are freeing up these funds so states can get down to the business of moving transportation projects forward and putting our friends and neighbors back to work,” LaHood said.

During an interview with Fortune magazine that was published today, Mitt Romney said that he would eliminate federal funding for Amtrak as one of his cuts aimed at balancing the budget:

So first there are programs I would eliminate. Obamacare being one of them but also various subsidy programs — the Amtrak subsidy, the PBS subsidy, the subsidy for the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities. Some of these things, like those endowment efforts and PBS I very much appreciate and like what they do in many cases, but I just think they have to strand on their own rather than receiving money borrowed from other countries, as our government does on their behalf.

This is certainly not the first time that Romney has singled out Amtrak for the budget cutting knife. “Amtrak ought to stand on its own feet or its own wheels or whatever you’d say,” he told a crowd earlier this year. But, leaving aside that the cuts Romney highlights are not going to get him anywhere close to balancing the budget, Romney intends to slice Amtrak funding at a time when funding for rail service is more necessary than ever.

Amtrak announced earlier this year that it is on pace to break the ridership record it set last year. By 2040, Amtrak “Amtrak said traffic in the [Northeast] corridor could reach 43.5 million passengers, almost four times the level today.”

However, as the New York Times noted, Amtrak desperately needs some upgrades: “Most days, trains in the Northeast are full. Several locomotives and railcars are 30 years old or more. Aging rails, bridges and tunnels hold down top speeds and limit expansion of the network.” America’s freight train infrastructure is also deteriorating.

Already, the National Association of Railroad Passengers has warned that cuts to Amtrak that are being pushed by House Republicans “would be tantamount to shutting down the entire Amtrak network, because the remaining routes could not cover the system’s overhead costs.” Obviously, eliminating Amtrak’s funding entirely would have much farther reaching consequences.