A series of public opinion polls about the nation’s crumbling infrastructure paints an accurate picture of many Americans’ mind-set — we want things, but don’t want to pay for them.

An article in the June 25 issue of Time magazine dealing with America’s failure to keep up with other nations’ investments in infrastructure included answers to four questions posed to Americans about transportation infrastructure.

The article featured the headline “Bridge to Nowhere? How the U.S. is losing the infrastructure race.”

In the article, it was noted that over the past 25 years the number of miles driven by Americans has nearly doubled, but the miles of highway handling all that additional driving has barely increased.

It also was reported that the World Economic Forum now ranks the U.S. infrastructure 24th out of 124 nations. That’s not encouraging for a country that wants to compete in a global economy.

A chart accompanying the article, based on average spending for the past 40 years, shows that while the U.S. spends about 1.6 percent of GDP (gross domestic product), other countries have been spending more — much more — on infrastructure.

Leading the spending is Norway, spending 3.5 percent of GDP to improve its transportation infrastructure. South Korea is next, at 3.4 percent, and with a plan to spend $15 billion to improve high-speed rail lines that cross the country carrying trains at 200 mph — a major upgrade to a system built in 2004. Australia is spending 3.1 percent of its GDP on infrastructure investments — twice the rate of investment of the United States.

So, the challenge is clear; if the United States intends to remain competitive globally, infrastructure investment must increase.

The results of three public opinion polls taken on the subject of transportation infrastructure appear with the article — and expose a familiar paradox.

The first question reveals that 66 percent of Americans say that fully funding transportation infrastucture is “extremely important” or “very important.”

The next survey question asked about increasing gas taxes, and found that 71 percent of respondents oppose higher gas taxes.

Then a question was asked regarding new tolls for roads or bridges. To this idea, 64 percent expressed opposition.

Finally, the idea of replacing gas taxes with some sort of mileage fee for funding highway construction was proposed. In this case, 58 percent of respondents rejected the idea.

The conclusion is clear: Most Americans strongly support the need to maintain and improve transportation infrastructure. But a majority of the same Americans oppose new gas taxes, new tolls and a mileage-based system to fund highways. How then, do Americans expect roads and bridges to be maintained or improved?

Last week’s passage by Congress of a highway-funding bill seems to fit this American attitude well. According to the Wall Street Journal, the highway-funding measure, passed with rare bipartisan support, will fund two years of highway work with 10 years of revenues and spending cuts.

The Journal’s editorial notes that the legislation is “crammed with a remarkable array of budget gimmicks voters aren’t supposed to notice.”

That seems to reflect Time’s contradictory poll results — highway funding that isn’t really highway funding, but is a short-term, political fix without a long-term funding solution.

The only time Congress can act in a bipartisan way is when it is spending money. And then, the money isn’t raised by user fees, such as a higher gasoline tax; it’s created with accounting tricks.

The Journal also notes that using 10 years of accounting gimmicks and spending cuts to pay for two years of highway work will only make the highway funding crisis worse in two years when the current funding dries up. That just kicks the problem down the road.

Congress did nothing to the 18.4-cent federal gasoline tax that has not been raised since 1993. Updating the tax, to at least keep up with inflation, should have been a no-brainer. Instead, Republicans and Democrats agreed to play accounting tricks and then slapped each other on the back for passing a bipartisan bill.

This might demonstrate the old adage that the people get the government they deserve.