Qamar Bashir
On September 17, Mayor Zohran Mamdani marked the repair of New York city’s 200,000th pothole this year. That work represents essential public service, but its scale also reveals the maintenance burden. In Michigan, the 2025 roads and bridges report recorded 67 local agency bridges closed because of poor or severe conditions. Deterioration carries costs in disrupted journeys, damaged vehicles and lost time.
Nationally, the engineering assessment is sobering. America’s infrastructure received a C in the 2025 report card, with roads graded D+. Bringing infrastructure into good repair would require an estimated $9.1 trillion over 2024–2033, against projected investment of $5.4 trillion if recent funding levels continue. The resulting $3.7 trillion gap measures the distance between acknowledged needs and resources expected to address them.
These are conditions Americans have often associated with the developing world: neglected infrastructure, persistent poverty, concentrated wealth and public institutions struggling to deliver essentials. “Third World” is an imperfect description, but the warning signs deserve attention. Their appearance within a wealthy superpower makes the question of priorities more urgent. Recognizing them is an expression of concern for America’s future.
Those priorities become clearer when domestic needs are placed beside overseas commitments. The established American military assistance framework for Israel provides $3.8 billion annually. A June estimate put Iran war costs between $34 billion and $42 billion, including deployments, munitions, equipment losses and base damage. By September 25, senators demanding fuller accounts cited Pentagon spending of $42 billion. The ultimate bill remains unsettled.
These commitments must also be understood within the wider budget. In fiscal year 2025, international-affairs spending amounted to $61 billion out of $1.9 trillion in discretionary spending—approximately 3 percent, and about 1 percent of total federal expenditure. This category supports diplomacy, development, humanitarian programmes and international security assistance; it is distinct from the Pentagon’s military budget. Over the past 50 years, international-affairs appropriations have ranged between 3.1 and 5.2 percent of discretionary spending. Spending rose by 20 percent in fiscal year 2022 and another 18 percent in 2023, primarily to support Ukraine following Russia’s invasion. These figures show that foreign assistance alone cannot explain America’s domestic investment shortfall.
Military expenditure does not explain every unrepaired street; responsibility for infrastructure crosses federal, state and local government. Nevertheless, the contrast in urgency is unmistakable. Prolonged deployments, replenished arsenals and damaged installations require resources and political attention. Every new commitment abroad entails choices about resources that could strengthen the productive foundations of American communities. National security also depends on what remains functional at home, while effective diplomacy and development assistance can help prevent more expensive crises.
Poverty exposes another fracture. An official poverty rate of 10.2 percent in 2025 remains alarming for one of the world’s strongest military and economic powers. Its decline does not erase the hardship of approximately one person in ten. The broader supplemental measure stood at 13.1 percent, showing no statistically significant improvement over 2024. Prosperity measured at the national level still leaves substantial deprivation underneath.
The fundamental challenge is whether people can earn a secure living. Assistance remains essential for those unable to work and can help others enter employment. But lasting poverty reduction requires skills, productive jobs, viable enterprises and earnings that meet ordinary expenses. Transfers alone cannot create the factories, services and capabilities on which shared prosperity depends. Economic policy must expand people’s capacity to generate wealth.
The objective should be measurable: more households supported by adequate earnings, more workers advancing through useful training, and more communities attracting durable investment. Success would mean fewer families needing emergency assistance because their own economic position has improved, while protection remains available when illness or disability intervenes.
China’s experience demonstrates the scale that sustained development can achieve. Nearly 800 million people escaped extreme poverty over four decades, according to the World Bank. Different poverty thresholds prevent a direct comparison with America, but the central lesson remains relevant: structural transformation can change living conditions on an enormous scale. America possesses the resources to pursue equally determined improvements within its own circumstances.
Household fragility makes the need tangible. The Federal Reserve found that 63 percent of adults would cover a hypothetical $400 emergency entirely through cash or its equivalent. The remaining 37 percent would use other means or could not pay. A tire, medical bill or urgent repair can therefore disrupt an already constrained budget. Vast private fortunes coexist with insecurity over rent, groceries, insurance and utilities.
Fuel prices deepen that pressure. Late September national averages were approximately $4.48 per gallon for regular gasoline and $6.45 for diesel, compared with roughly $3.13 and $3.69 a year earlier. Diesel transmits costs through farming, trucking and distribution. Large domestic oil production does not protect American consumers from internationally traded prices, disrupted shipping and constraints on refining.
These pressures could reshape the midterms. Disruption around Hormuz and threats to Red Sea shipping give regional actors influence over the economic circumstances confronting American voters. That influence is not control over election results, but prolonged energy inflation presents Republicans with serious political exposure. A changed Congress could strengthen oversight and restrict war funding, although ending hostilities would still require political decisions.
Diplomatic credibility faces pressures of its own. The American military removal of Venezuela’s president, subsequent oil arrangements and mounting pressure on Cuba raise questions about sovereignty and coercion. Governments may yield under pressure while becoming less willing to trust Washington. Transactional diplomacy can secure immediate concessions at the expense of relationships that sustain influence over decades.
Political money adds another concern. AIPAC’s affiliated super PAC, United Democracy Project, spent $61.4 million in the 2024 cycle. Such spending does not itself establish bribery, but it illustrates the resources organized interests can bring to electoral competition. Presidential conflicts of interest also demand scrutiny; allegations of personal enrichment require evidence. Public confidence depends on officials demonstrably serving the country.
America’s capacity for renewal remains immense. Manufacturing still employs roughly 12.6 million people, alongside substantial strengths in research, technology and enterprise. Expanding that base requires technical education, apprenticeships, dependable energy, modern transport and investment in competitive production. Infrastructure repair and industrial renewal reinforce each other: better systems help businesses operate, while productive employment broadens the revenues available to maintain those systems.
With national debt around $40 trillion, priorities require discipline. Yet reducing international-affairs spending, at about 1 percent of the federal budget, cannot resolve the fiscal imbalance. Its deeper causes include rising healthcare costs, an aging population, growing interest payments and revenues insufficient to meet existing commitments. Rebuilding America therefore requires sustained investment alongside credible decisions about spending and taxation.
The dollar rests on productive capacity, financial depth and institutional trust. Its international position cannot substitute indefinitely for strengthening those foundations. America must also distinguish its interests from Benjamin Netanyahu’s ambitions and pursue an end to a war whose costs reach into American households. Strategic independence includes the ability to refuse an ally’s destructive course.
A pothole is a small opening into a larger national question: how effectively does American power serve American life? The answer can change. This country retains energetic workers, inventive businesses and extraordinary resources. Directing those strengths toward productive livelihoods, sound infrastructure and responsible diplomacy would turn today’s warning signs into the starting point of renewal. America’s future strength can be built from within.
Qamar Bashir
Press Secretary to the President (Rtd)
Former Press Minister, Embassy of Pakistan to France
Former Press Attaché to Malaysia
Former MD, SRBC | Michigan, USA
