What About the Future?

UPDATE: Daschle Withdraws as Nominee for Health Post
Former Senator Tom Daschle, President Obama's nominee for
health and human services secretary, has withdrawn from
consideration for the post over his belated payment of
$128,000 in federal taxes.

I know that everyone wants to see change happening immediately, change that will help stabilize the economy, bring new jobs for the thousands who have lost theirs, change that will allow us all to be able to breathe deeply again. I also know that the Obama Administration cannot make that happen after only two weeks in office. And, of course, people are already beginning to question why it’s taking so long. And there is the political mumblings about Daschle’s nomination and whether, in spite of a new administration that promised to do things differently, it’s still pay back time to those who supported them during the seemingly endless campaign. I guess we’re all looking for, hoping for miracles and those are difficult to achieve in Washington DC without paying a price. Sad as that is, I’m afraid it is the reality in our world today. It’s still about the money whether it is the fat cats or the rest of us that are struggling on a day to day basis. And are all those that we have counted on to bring that “new day” to our country now being seen as having money problems of their own – as in back taxes, pay-to-play schemes? I do so hope that all of us who have been looking upward for our solutions, don’t fall into the hole dug by those we have trusted.

So, when do we get serious about repairing and rebuilding our country’s crumbling and increasingly obsolete infrastructure? In Bob Herbert’s Op-Ed column today he explores the same question. The catastrophe in New Orleans didn’t do it although according to Douglas Brinkley, who wrote in his book, “The Great Deluge”:
“What people didn’t yet fully comprehend was that the overall disaster, the sinking of New Orleans, was a man-made debacle, resulting from poorly designed levees and floodwalls.”

Even the rush-hour collapse of the bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis wasn’t enough to get us serious. I think, when we are all so personally concerned about how we are going to survive the economic disaster we find ourselves in today, we fail to see that this downturn could be eased by a truly big-time surge of infrastructure investment – we’re not the only ones that seem to be unable to grasp the reality of where we find ourselves.

We’re rushing to bail out the banking industry for what? What kind of country will we have once the bankers are fat and happy again? The U.S. will still be a nation with a pathetic mid-20th-century infrastructure struggling to make it in a dynamic
21st century world.

The American Society of Civil Engineers, in a report released last week, essentially described the state of American infrastructure as dreadful. More than a quarter of the nation’s bridges were rated structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. Not to mention public transportation systems, dams and levees, most of which are more than a half-century old. And then there is our drinking water system. Leaking pipes lose an estimated seven billion gallons of clean drinking water a day. The society gave the nation’s infrastructure an overall grade of D! It is estimated that to put it back in shape would require $2.2 trillion over five years.

There is infrastructure spending in the Democrats’ proposed stimulus package, but it is far too meager to have much of an impact on the nation’s overall infrastructure requirements or the demand for the creation of jobs.

According to Herbert, the big danger is that some variation of the currently proposed stimulus package will pass, another enormous bailout for the bankers will be authorized and then the trillion-dollar-plus budget deficits will make their appearance, looming like unholy monsters over everything else, and Washington will suddenly lose its nerve.

Herbert feels that the mantra will be that we can’t afford to spend any more money on the infrastructure, or on a big health care initiative, or any of the nation’s other crying needs. Suddenly fiscal discipline will be the order of the day and the people who are suffering now will suffer more, and the nation’s long-term prospects will be further damaged as its long-term needs continue to be neglected.

When will we learn from history? Or will we ever? Time and time again an economic boom has followed a period of sustained infrastructure investment. We’re suffering now from both a failure of will and of imagination. Financier Felix Rohatyn once told Herbert that, “A modern economy needs a modern platform, and that’s the infrastructure.”

History tells us the same thing – are we, can we learn from history? I guess it remains to be seen.