Posted on 08/07/2007 4:59:33 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
A 40-year-old bridge collapses into the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. Levees give way in New Orleans at the foot of the Mississippi. An 83-year-old steam pipe produces an eruption that terrorizes Manhattan. As our infrastructure literally crumbles beneath our feet, America is building the largest embassy compound in the world in Iraq -- an area larger than the Pentagon -- to manage a war now estimated to cost $1 trillion. What happened at both ends of the Mississippi and is happening in cities across the country are tragedies, but they aren't random accidents. They are the direct price of the right wing in power. Scornful of government, intent on cutting taxes and slashing spending, they systematically have shorted public investment in our basic infrastructure -- in bridges and roads, in rail lines and air systems, in parks and schools.
The American Society of Civil Engineers gave America a D for its infrastructure in their most recent report in 2005. Ironically, bridges did better -- a grade C -- than sewers, water treatment and a range of other areas. In the report, more than one out of every four bridges in America were rated as structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. Don't think about that when you drive over your next bridge.
For over 25 years, we've cheated on public investment. ''Government,'' Ronald Reagan preached, ''is not the solution. Government is the problem.'' Activists like Grover Norquist took this to the extreme, saying, "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can . . . drown it in the bathtub.''
Norquist and his allies have bullied Republicans into signing a pledge never to raise taxes. In Minnesota, the conservative governor, Tim Pawlenty, campaigned against taxes and vetoed an appropriation bill that would have provided increased funds for highway and bridge repairs. Interstate 35's Bridge 9340, rated structurally deficit by the U.S. Department of Transportation, had repairs on it postponed for a year.
One trillion dollars squandered in the debacle in Iraq. A clamp on vital investments here at home. Those are the stated priorities of modern-day conservatives -- a far remove from those of President Dwight Eisenhower, who built the interstate highway system while putting a lid on military spending and balancing the budget. Ike knew that infrastructure was important; military adventurism was dangerous and fiscal balance was common sense. Modern-day conservatives have abandoned every part of his lessons.
Of course, conservatives will deny that they are responsible for the crumbling of America. In the Republican debate in Iowa, every leading Republican presidential contender called for staying in Iraq and opposed increasing taxes on the wealthy even as they admitted the need to invest in our infrastructure. They are peddling fantasies to a people in desperate need of the truth.
As Minneapolis showed, disdain for public investment can be deadly. It also snuffs out hope. Our schools are old and crowded. There simply isn't the space to provide rising enrollments with the smaller classes that are so necessary for the early years. We should be making schools modern sanctuaries for children, demonstrating how important we take their education to be. Instead, we send them into drafty and dank buildings, with broken windows, outmoded heating systems and crowded classrooms. That is the first lesson they learn.
No one should be fooled. Those who choose to spend $11 billion a month in Iraq while shorting vital investments here at home aren't securing America; they are weakening it.
And as citizens from New Orleans to Manhattan to Minneapolis have discovered, we are all more vulnerable as a result.
jjackson@rainbowpush.org
government solutions are always so easy, see?
This bridge would not have collapsed is George Bush didn’t hate every black person in America!!
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Toss every NEA member out, decertify the NEA as a bargaining entity, stop indoctrinating the kids with social viewpoints, the homosexual agenda, and the supreme stupidity of “diversity is strength” nonsense and they would be.
The last thing in the world we want to do is throw more money down the rathole that the American educational system has become.
and that is how we demonstrate that their education is truly important. and that you are truly ignorant.
The bridge was declared unsafe in 1990 For the next 17 years locals spent over one billion in federal aid on the Hiawatha Pathway", a light rail system in the Minneapolis area, instead of repairing the bridge.
So whose fault is this really.
Where did N.O. spend its funds that should have gone to the levees? Lack of planning and being prepared should lay at the feet of the N.O. government and Governor Blanco specifically.
I’m not crossing that bridge when I come to it!
Aren’t there a lot of states that are running surpluses?
If that’s the case, why raise taxes when there’s dough in many state coffers that could be used to repair bridges?
I never knew that President Bush hated bridges. Who knew?
Too late. When you can graduate from college work 20 years as a teacher, retire at 43 or 45 and collect a large percentage of your pay with benefits, how can you STOP the money from going down the proverbial rathole?
Again, too late.
liberal taboo: less taxes = more revenue
For decades the corrupt NYC pols have had to choose between maintaining infrastructure or buying votes from the welfare extortionists and municipal union thugs.
Guess which way they chose.
You’re right Jesse. We don’t pay enough taxes. Just ask any NYer who actually works for a living.
As my reputation literally crumbles beneath my feet,
Fixed it.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
When I was a kid, way back in the late 50's and early 60's, the concrete was falling off nearly all of them. In fact Jesse when we needed 'chalk' we'd do down to long RR Viaduct at 39th & Western and use up the concrete chips that were always laying on the sidewalk.
(However they played heck on bike tires. When going to McKinley Park we had to zig-zag around the big pieces)
You MUST be from Chicago. I have never heard the “jag..” reference anywhere else.
The one that got me was the railroad bridge on 35th just west of the ballpark; that’s looked like it’s been ready to come down for about 40 years.
Doesn’t Jesse have a couple payments to former secretaries to make?
However, most infrastructure is a state or local issue, not a federal one.
Sewers and water treatment are local issues, not federal.
The levees in New Orleans are a state and local issue.
The army corp of engineers is a federal resource that helps local and state governments with such issues, but the responsibility to build and maintain that infrastructure falls upon the state and local governments.
During the end of Bush Senior's term and through most of Clinton's two terms the US experienced a huge economic expansion. State and local governments were swimming in tax dollars. Did those states take those windfalls and invest in necessary infrastructure? They did invest some. However they also vastly expanded services and expanded parks and other resources that required upkeep. Instead of investing those tax dollars in rebuilding and maintaining critical infrastructure, they gave themselves more projects to maintain, which they are unable to support during the slower but steady growth we are experiencing now.
Our economy is strong, but our governments are going bankrupt simply due to grossly incompetent planning. This is of course leading to the usual blame game where incompetent politicians all try and shift the blame elsewhere, and the liberal socialists and communists use it as an opportunity to say that the problem would be solved by a stronger federal government.
In truth, bad local public policies must be allowed to fail so that people will learn. Otherwise problems will get increasingly worse and there will be no accountability at local levels, and the weight of all those bad policies will strangle us at the federal level.
This is one of the main reasons big, socialist government is doomed to failure.
Jesse and his ilk, don't offer solutions, they just try and shift blame. They have no solutions to real problems. The problem they are trying to solve is how to gain more power over the people, not solve the people's problems. If problems actually got solved, they would lose their influence, because they get their influence by blaming others.
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