Re: NBC: Public anger will follow our sorrow

On Fri, 03 Aug 2007 19:46:56 -0700, gully <gulliverfoyle2@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Nanny state, for lack of a better term. That's what you call all those
nasty, inconvenient things like food inspection, port security, bridge
inspection and repair, right?

That's not what I meant by nanny state, for lack of a better term.
It's the incredible growth in entitlement and other social spending
that has been crowding out the ability to engage in infrastructure
spending. We as a society have a choice. We can either continue to
massively increase entitlement and other social spending, or we can
make massive increases in infrastructure investment. It's as simple
as that. The following commentary in City Journal by Nicole Gelinas
spells it out.

CITY JOURNAL
The Crumbling of America
Our precious infrastructure inheritance and how
we?re squandering it
Nicole Gelinas
3 August 2007

It?s not clear why a major section of the nation?s interstate highway
system collapsed Wednesday night over the Mississippi River in
Minnesota, causing a still unknown number of fatalities and
indefinitely severing an important transportation link. But one thing
has been all too clear for decades: America is neglecting its vital
physical infrastructure, and the bill is coming due.

As a nation, we?ve long borrowed from our future; everybody knows
about the inevitable Social Security and Medicare crises that will
happen in the next three decades as the number of retirees expands in
relation to the number of workers. Far fewer people understand that
we?ve also been borrowing from our past. The federal highway system,
the backbone of America?s modern economy, turned 50 last year. But, as
I wrote in Forbes magazine in April, we haven?t spent enough, or
thought enough, to keep it?and other physical assets that previous
generations built?in good working order. We spend only 60 percent of
what?s needed to keep roads in good condition, according to the
American Society of Civil Engineers. In New York State, for instance,
35 percent of major roads are in ?poor or mediocre condition,? the
ASCE says, while 38 percent of bridges are ?structurally deficient or
functionally obsolete.?

Even where they?re safe enough, transportation assets suffer from
obsolescence, as traffic and vehicle weights increase annually while
road spending lags. Rush hour on Northeast and West Coast freeways
goes on all day and half the night. And it?s not just roads and
highways; mass-transit assets in major cities have deteriorated, too.
The ASCE gave the nation?s infrastructure?including airports, bridges,
dams, water and wastewater systems, rails, and roads?a grade of ?D?
two years ago, warning that ?with each passing day, aging or
overburdened infrastructure threatens America?s economy and our
quality of life.? New Orleans residents found that out when Hurricane
Katrina hit in 2005 and the levees broke, allowing water to inundate
the city.

It?s easy to see how this happened. If the fifties were the decade of
infrastructure, the sixties were the decade of entitlements and social
services?and the sixties haven?t ended. Just five years ago, a
Republican Congress scrambled to add a huge new prescription-drug
benefit to the 1965 Medicare program. Even when we do spend money on
infrastructure, it often suffers from confusion of purpose. Congress
treats federal transportation bills as opportunities for political
earmarks, rather than for rational growth. And states see
infrastructure projects as ways to funnel money to politically favored
contractors and powerful construction unions, rather than as
worthwhile undertakings to be done as efficiently and effectively as
possible.

At the state level, Medicaid spending dwarfs infrastructure spending,
and most governors don?t sound the alarm. One exception is California
governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who expressed grave concern about his
own state?s levees in the months after Katrina, and who won voter
approval last year to float tens of billions in bonds to fund
infrastructure upgrades. But Schwarzenegger and California?s
legislature don?t want to cut back on anything else to pay for that
investment, preferring both bridges and butter?and that?s not
sustainable for long.

The problem isn?t just the possibility of future disasters. To
understand the true scope of what we?re facing, think about that other
boring problem that nobody likes to worry about: our unfunded
obligations to Social Security and Medicare, incurred by borrowing
from the future for so long. Many independent experts say that even
with robust economic and productivity growth, America simply cannot
grow its way out of these entitlement-program problems.

We?ll see. But we definitely can?t grow our way out if our
economy?during the very years when it must generate enough tax revenue
to fund benefits for retiring baby boomers?is straitjacketed by
failing, outdated physical infrastructure. Our future obligations
continue to grow while the assets that we have?gifts from the
past?deteriorate. Every year that we refuse to confront the problem,
we fall farther behind.

(end of commentary)
.

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