Letting our infrastructure go to waste

I was appalled, along with everyone else, to learn about the Minneapolis bridge collapse yesterday.  It reminded me of another bridge just seven miles from where I live that is on its last leg.  Seattle city officials warn it could collapse at any time.

So why is this happening?  After all, we are supposed to be in the 21st century.  Our country is in need of an infrastructural upgrade to the extent of what transpired when the freeways were first built more than forty years ago.

Even though local municipalities across the country need more funding, the money is supposedly hard to come by.  The prices of steel and concrete are much higher than earlier this decade.  As one expert said, "we're buying a lot less repairs than we did five years ago" for the same amount of money.  It would cost roughly $1.6 trillion over the next five years to bring our country's infrastructure up to speed.

But wait a minute.  $1.6 trillion over five years?  We are paying $12 billion each month in Iraq, and possibly one trillion by the time it is over.  Maybe we just need to get our priorities straight.

Comments

[mikerbob]

TRILLION, not BILLION

[granny]

This is a good post! Entirely relevant.

Whoever takes over in the next Adminstration is faced with not only the global issues, which are monumental, but the almost overwhelming task of rebuilding a sadly, and dangerously, neglected United States infrastructure - both physical and in services and responses.

We have no business throwing around the money we do, on war, on pet projects, on over spending, on corruption.

If another Republican takes the office, we can expect to see no effort to address that.

[granny]

August 4th comment: In the world of collapsing bridges, it seems this event in Minnesota has triggered a (small at least) ground swell of "panic" over bridges collapsing...various versions of "Oh my god, what about our ______ (fill in the blank)? When was that last inspected? What do we know about how safe that is?"

When I hear this, I wonder: Did any one of the people now having this sudden "epiphany" about the domestic aspects of running a country, give thought to those things when considering candidates for the Presidency?

Somewhere up in this blog, Chief Editor Todd talks about ideas, good ones versus interseting ones, and remarks on considering consequences before taking action.

And George remarks, in a different comment space: "our politics are too divided to do the right thing and to make real progress ... We have a problem."

These observations are the heart of the matter, right now, and for the future of this country.

What ARE we thinking, when we contemplate new elections, and choosing candidates?

It doesn't appear that we think much about anything more than the headline hyp and personal idiosycracies and agendas.

We do have a problem. And the consequences are burgeoning all around us, year after year after year, one President after another.

Time to think about how we're "thinking" ...

[Chief Editor: Todd]

It's sad that it takes disasters like this to happen in order for us to question ourselves and our policies. I guess Katrina didn't have the impact on us that I thought it would have -- in terms of being mindful of our vulnerabilities here at home.

I know I keep harping on this point, but you can't count on a party to manage government when its philosophy is to get cut funding for most non-terrorism-related agencies.