GOP to US Infrastructure: All Fall Down

The result is an inexcusable drop in maintenance, even as our population has expanded dramatically and the wear and tear on all parts of the infrastructure has created disasters-in-the-making. As one senator says of our increasingly-ramshackle house, “I’ve been here seven and a half years. We have not solved one single problem. It’s just so frustrating.”

That was no tax-and-spend liberal Democrat talking – it was a penny-pinching Republican, Bob Corker of Tennessee. Indeed, it was not that long ago that most Republicans understood and funded infrastructure – from Lincoln to Teddy Roosevelt to Ike, and even Reagan, who called such common sense maintenance “an investment in tomorrow that we must make today.”

Gail Collins, the superbly sensible New York Times columnist, recently noted that, “In a perfect world, Congress would figure out a serious, long-term plan to fix bridges, [etc.].” Yes, but I would amend her observation with this: It shouldn’t take “a perfect world” – even a Congress in a half-way mediocre world ought to be able to do that job.

Actually, thanks to GOP obstinacy, Congress isn’t the Little Choo-Choo That Couldn’t. It’s the Choo-Choo that could, but won’t.

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This has beenr reposted from Jim Hightower’s website.