BOB HERBERT: Our Crumbling Foundation

[kevinmc]

NYT

Fifty-nine years ago this week — on April 3, 1948 — President Truman signed the legislation establishing the Marshall Plan, which contributed so much to the rebuilding of postwar Europe. Now, more than half a century later, the U.S. can’t even rebuild New Orleans.

It doesn’t seem able to build much of anything, really. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, the U.S. infrastructure is in sad shape, and it would take more than a trillion and a half dollars over a five-year period to bring it back to a reasonably adequate condition.

If there’s a less sexy story floating around, I can’t find it. It certainly can’t compete with the Sanjaya Malakar saga, or with the claim by Keith Richards that he snorted his dad’s ashes with “a little bit of blow.”

But, as we learned with New Orleans, there are consequences to neglecting the infrastructure. Just a little over a year ago, a dam in Hawaii gave way, unleashing a wave 70 feet high and 200 yards wide. It swept away virtually everything in its path, including cars, houses and trees. Seven people drowned. .......

http://freedemocracy.blogspot.com/2007/04/bob-herbert-our-crumbling-foundation.html

[babylonsister]

1. Really. The media whores are definitely concentrating on the wrong things. nt

[pigpickle]

2. All too true, I hate to read it but it's true.

[eridani]

3. The Republican vision for America

We just stop building and making things. We use military force to take stuff from other countries, put each other in jail, and sell each other cheap Chinese crap.

[lostnotforgotten]

4. Actually, The Republicans Want To Return To Feudalism

All hail the Chimperor from which all bounty flows and from whom all justice is extracted.

Translation: "you don't kiss my ass then your village does not get that new bridge."

[fencesitter]

5. All depends who's/where the infrastructure is

Around here we're building new, newer, big and bigger. Homes, schools, roads, shopping centers, treatment plants, sewers, all the necessary infrastructure. However, 5 miles down the road, we just abandon that to the poor people who can't afford to move to our new wealthy suburbs.