A watermain broke in Lemay, Missouri, this morning, spewing "baseball-sized shards of the street into the air.
Our national infrastructure is not too expensive to fix or upgrade or even build from scratch. In terms of pure finance, there's never been a better time for investing in big projects. We're just choosing not to do that.
(Got infrastructure fails near you? Let us know. Maybe we can make a regular feature of it.)
You're in Easy Mode. If you prefer, you can use XHTML Mode instead. |
Video: Day 2 reveals shocking scale of storm's destruction
Video: 'May 20' takes new meaning for Oklahoma
Video: Safe rooms prove effective defense against tornadoes
Video: Busy time for news beyond tornado tragedy
Video: Tea party seizes on IRS scandal as investigations, ineptitude perpetuate outrage
Video: Estimates give Moore sad distinction
Video: More from Moore
Leave a Comment:
But, Steve! Speaker Boner says, "We're broke!"
We need to privatize all the roads and sewers and water mains, because Capitalism is better than Socialism.
And because of GOTP obstructionism as Rachael says "this is why WE can't have nice things"!
I'm all for infrrastructure spending, but with the debt and deficit, offset the costs with savings. Enough with Keynes with a 16 trillion debt.
@from...
End the wars, tell Defense to make do with what they have for a few years, end the tax breaks for the oil companies, end the Tax cuts of 2004, and stop giving money to foriegn nations that really don't like us very much...
Think that might help with your "offsets"?...
fine with me. also, end funding pbs, planned parenthood,arts endowments. Spend those savings on medical research. We need to prioritize.
Perfect. Just run abbreviated clip of this strung together with a couple 3 more & music bed, say, It's a Wonderful World because it is well known, fade to black with white lettering "Got Infrastructure?" and you have a 30 sec. spot. Perfect.
I wish I had water pressure like that at my house!!
Um, excuse me, I think you're street is leaking...
;-)
with this and the very good History Channel's The Crumbling of America ( I know, hard to believe it's not about aliens, Nazis or Nazi aliens), it all makes me very sad and very damn angry that people are this stupid.
Only someone totally unfamiliar with the process would think that you can go out an hire 5000 people with shovels to fix roads and bridges so to speak.
While you and 8 or 10 of your handiest friends can literally go form a company to build houses spec, you cannot build or repair roads and bridges. It usually takes bonding and a history with the state to even be allowed to bid on the project. Furthermore if native born Americans wanted to do this work, the crews would not be filled with so many immigrants who, like our ancestors before us, fill those construction jobs that the native born don't want to do. Good for them. It's their ticket up and out.
Finally there are as President Obama says he found out, no such thing as shovel ready projects in this country. They are going to rebuild the overpass nearest my house, simple two lane job, and the county tells me it will be a year in processing before the first shovel of earth is turned. The more money you borrow, you don't increase the number of projects that get done for the most part. You increase the amount that the small number of companies in the business can charge for each project.
There were four, count em, 4, as in FOUR water main breaks in less than two, count em, 2, as in TWO months (July & August) inside Philadelphia city limits - another outside city limits.
Belay that - while googling to check facts, I found another occurred just today and another 3 days ago! And others in the burbs and NJ. So I have lost count.
Let's just say there have been a BUNCH of them in Philly and nearby in the burbs and just over the bridge in Jersey - too many for my poor little brain to keep track. But no need to maintain infrastructure around here GuvJustCloseYourEyes!
Yo, Joe, while you were posting this comment, I was emailing the show with a list of links (not having any video of my own to upload) on this very subject! I think making it a regular feature would be a great idea. In your Googling to check facts, did you happen to come across this site?
http://www.phillywatersheds.org/whats_in_it_for_you/residents/watermainbreaks
Among other fascinating things on that page, the Philly Water Department explains that it had 954 broken mains in FY 2011 alone. So... no, the sense that this happens a lot is not just your imagination.
o.O
Quick, get the pumps and hoses going to the crops before it evaporates!
Nice, at least my gayness still offsets your child's carbon footprint..
If- like the big banks- I could get billion$ from the Fed at zero interest, I would go door to door, and ask folks along the street how much they would pay me for new water/sewer/pavement.
But I am NOT a big bank, just a poor old taxpayer, asking for the services I pay for with my taxes. . .
Your taxes have gone to municipal employees salaries, pensions and healthcare. There is no one to blame but your local politician
I like the idea that my taxes go to municipal employees salaries, pensions and healthcare. These people do valuable jobs that need to be done.
What is your point?
OK, are there no bills for people's water service to pay for the municipal employees? Are there no employee contributions to pensions?
There are taxes and there are utility bills, road taxes and I ALSO want competent, trained and certified people doing those jobs without regard to stockholders and Executive salary/bonuses.
Folks wanting to cut those things are suggesting they want to make "for-profit" companies to take over, AS IF that would lower the cost. It only adds so called "middle-men". You know and I know. Economy works much better when people have good wages, pensions and confidence in employment futere. They buy houses and cars, etc., etc., etc.
Right now we have empty houses to cut revenues, that does not help. So, give me a break with cutting more jobs and salaries and pensions would make taxpayers' lives better. It won't.
It's not like this everywhere, fortunately. There's actually a fair amount of infrastructure work going on where I live: road resurfacing, new crosswalk ramps, work on the water system and electrical grid. There's other construction going on as well. I have no idea how many cranes there are dotted around the horizon. Makes it a little hard to get around sometimes, but I'm certainly not going to complain. There should be more of this going on all over the place, but that would mean (sarcastic shudder) a more even distribution of wealth.
Every time there is a big storm you always hear about people without power for days. It's time to start a national project to get as much of our electrical distribution as possible underground.