New York City: Another Disaster Brought by Republicans

The specific explosion in New York City was not brought to us by Republicans, but as sure as the sun rises in the morning you can believe there will be more such disasters orchestrated by the Republican Party and the Democrats who play along with policies designed to assuage the moderates but end up irritating everyone.

News item: Blast shows age of U.S. infrastructure: With a blast that made skyscrapers tremble, an 83-year-old steam pipe sent a powerful message that the miles of tubes, wires and iron beneath New York and other U.S. cities are getting older and could become dangerously unstable.

This country was built on investment, investment in infrastructure. Urban residents paid to help bring rural electrification to the farms. Easterners paid for dams that watered the western plains. City resident paid for highways that opened up the suburbs. Rural folks helped pay for lands given to the railroads that brought agricultural goods to the cities.

Now the Republicans are making sure that no one pays. Roads are deteriorating, schools are firetraps and unable to provide reliable Internet connections, airports are inadequate to handle the demands of modern day air traffic, sewage and water systems are strained.

Waxing America, October 12, 2005: Fix the bridges and the dams.  "A right-wing government that strangles public expenditures for public works is largely responsible for what happened in New Orleans." (Katrina Compounded, Sept. 1, 2005)

Here in the Badger State the chant may be led by the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and their minions in the legislature, but they have their counterparts in every state house and in the nation's capital.

"I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."  ---Grover Norquist, presidential adviser and conservative strategist, close business and political ally of Jack Abramhoff

The reports warning about the pending crisis are brought by the American Society of Civil Engineers, (ASCE) not your most liberal  Kos-reading, Clinton-loving, acid-dropping, sandal-wearing, Volvo-driving, band of followers of Abbie Hoffman, Doctor Spock, and Little Sally. 

ASCE estimates that $1.6 trillion is needed over a five-year period to bring the nation's infrastructure to a good condition.

Cost of the war in Iraq, from the New York Times: What $1.2 Trillion Can Buy

The money could be better spent fixing America than making Iraq a recruiting camp for terrorists.

Comments

[Rick Esenberg]

What haven't those damn Republicans done? Bush told Barry Bonds to use steroids. Cheney wrote the ending to the Sopranos. Goverment could have spent (invested?) us into immortality and massive wealth by now if it weren't for that awful Newt Gingrich.

But why would an association of civil engineers want to promote massive spending on infrastructure? Let me think about that. Give me a few minutes.... I know there's a reason .....

[Paul]

Rick: I know Cheney did not write the ending to the Sopranos, that was beyond his talents.

Yes, the civil engineers might have a profit motive in encouraging more spending on infrastucture but that does not diminish the accuracy of their report. The crumbling infrastructure is too well documented.

And yes, Bush probably did introduce steroids to major league baseball. Even Selig will not show up in Milwaukee this weekend.

[Dan Sebald]

"But why would an association of civil engineers want to promote massive spending on infrastructure? Let me think about that. Give me a few minutes.... I know there's a reason ....."

I'd rather build things than blow them up, of course with some sane plan for building. Like Perot said about pork barrel politics "You put a bridge where you need it!"... If you are implying that our infrastructure is *not* in dire straits, please read:

America's Highways Hurting
HARRISBURG, Penn., July 9, 2007
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/07/09/eveningnews/printable3033705.shtml

Of course, Allen Biehler is a civil engineer by trade. (I supposed Pennsylvania thought an civil engineer would make a good transportation secretary.)

Newt Gingrich was running congress when the government was showing a surplus. (Well, as much of a "surplus" as can be expected from a government that builds its house on debt.) It's the Republican congress and administration that followed that sunk the country. Don't you recall how the Bush administration talked down the economy when coming into office and then reworked the start of the recession so that it looks to have started under Clinton? (Probably for reasons of pushing tax breaks and suppressing the economy so that by time 2004 elections rolled around the economy could only be improving.) However, as far as economy, it's a hollow shell built on cheap interest rates and expansionism. Now it is foreclosures going up (note the July 14 NYT editorial about the 2005 lending/bankruptcy laws that put most of the risk on the borrower, not lender) and the value of the dollar going down. The dollar will keep going down until the U.S. gets a handle on its debt. Leave it to the Bush administration to whitewash the poor currency exchange rate as a good thing, supposedly making our goods attractive to foreign purchasers. Only one problem Mr. President: We have a big import/export deficit!

U.S. Heading For Financial Trouble?
July 8, 2007
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/01/60minutes/printable2528226.shtml
David Walker, U.S. comptroller, talks of the impending crisis of in our lifetimes if nothing is done to change course.

I'll trust civil servants above politicians any day.

Tell us some good things that the Republican congress has done in the last 10 years? I mean, for the average American citizen, not the specific corporate beneficiaries. Deregulating and privatizing a program so that corporations can profit, e.g., Enron, doesn't count. Prescription drug bill? Reducing cost of health care? (Notice I didn't say socializing it, but my guess that might reduce cost.) Workable immigration policy?

I'm not expecting any promises kept from Democrats, mind you (we need a third party), but the focus is whether Republicans were good drivers when they had their chance at the wheel. My opinion is "no", if that isn't obvious.