Infrastructure
 

How nice of GWB to spend $XXXB to upgrade Iraq'sinfrastructure, while our own is falling to pieces.

http://www.asce.org/reportcard/2005/page.cfm?id=103

ASCE
American Society of Civil Engineers

http://www.asce.org/
.......a bunch of unAmerican commie bastards I bet.:rolleyes:

I dunno...

Spend more and reduce taxes further to increase the economic growth?

Sounds like a plan..

Very American in their lobbying efforts to drum up more business for themselves. Not communistic at all. Ask any group that feeds at the public trough on pork and they will tell you the sky is falling..

Does anyone who does not live in a cave really believe our infrastructure is falling to pieces??? It might seem that way with late winter pot-holes, but don't worry fellas, spring is coming...

My $0.02

- State governments are swamped with pension liabilities and health costs of public employees and uninsured citizens. The $$$ just are there like the old daze...

- Stuck in traffic?? Move back to your hometown in the midwest/northeast.

I have also heard the fox lament the over spending on chicken coop security:)

And to think that all that money our government spends to support 2nd and 3rd generation welfare recipients could have been better spent on rebuilding bridges and roads and such. :mad:

(For those of you who can't tell....I'm only kidding...well, kinda)

Randy

awfully damned obvious, isn't it? but then again, libs were always expert at the paradigm know as a pot calling the kettle black

Aw for cryin' out loud.

Okay, maybe our best response IS to change the subject and place blame on welfare recipients.

Those of you who postulate that our infrastructure is just fine......are not in agreement with even your conservative legislators and congress persons.

It is absolutely true that we are allowing our infrastructure to deteriorate. But that's just a piece of the puzzle and it's deliberate. What we really need is to privatize everything. Put corporations in charge of public infrastructure. I'm sure that makes everyone feel more relaxed and secure, and of course it would be LOTS cheaper with corporations operating our water, power and transportation systems.

And candidly, according to all I have heard in dealing with public agencies and other members of the public works infrastructure industries, $1.6 trillion would be a bargain-basement price for what needs to be done. And I know I'm about to be called one of the folks who feeds at the public trough and so has a totally slanted viewpoint. Okay. I'd would agree that debaters of this issue can be divided into two groups. The insiders who deal with these issues, and the amateurs who are just guessing. Please identify which group you are in when you post.

My group? One that thinks Congress Persons is silly English. Fine PC for the modern University, but has no place in off-topic...

My boring theory on boring infrastructure (lets face it, it us not the subject of the week...) let the user pay!

Yes, tolls and fuel taxes and airline ticket surcharges. Let the market sort out the trucks and cars and mass transit, barges, trains, Amtrack and donkey carts. Something not being funded - well then raise the user tax. Still not being funded? Well then do away with it.. You want to pay $50 a day to use the HOV lane, I say go for it. Want to pay $1.50 and ride the bus, I say do that too!!

Good old all American choice! Just leave my payroll tax and property taxes out of it!!

I knew the right wing rabble would find a slant to change the topic and incite hate and loathing - this might be a new low for them.

That just won't work, g-man!!

For starters, those 2nd and 3rd generation welfare recipients I comically refered to in my previous post don't make....er....earn...uh....collect.....um, well....suck , yeah, thats it, suck, enough money from their handouts to be able to afford to drive anywhere if you taxed people on usage. They'd have to stay home and wouldn't be able to attend their silly little anti-war protests. This just won't do. :(

Randy

Re: Infrastructure
 

Not worry, we're gonna get our infrastructure all pimped out with all that Iraq oil money.:rolleyes:

Better yet, cease all transportation spending.
Wanna fly internationally? No more goverment assistance for the airlines so those that can afford $5-10,000 tickets better get out their wallets.
Wanna get to work? An ATV and a snowmobile will fit better in the garage. Anyone that wants to fix the roads are gonna have to "collect" roadside, ala Columbia.
Use well water? Dump your used oil on your neighbors lawn instead.
Military taxes? Go do it yourself.
The list goes on for those anarchy-type people....

I walk to work.................and have my hovercraft ready for such an event.;)
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1110489049.jpg

It not anarchy John, it is just having less interstates in West Virginia - (paid with tax dollars) where they are not needed and going where they are needed. (More toll revenue, more roads).

It is not about ceasing spending, just funding what is needed, by those that use it. (Either driving along themselves -or- added to the price of products they buy.)

No free lunch, no free roads either..

g man. without the movement of goods and services in this country, the economy would tank. hediously. even china is spending mad money on building freeway and bridges. you have to be mobile in order to survive.

Yes, the guibmint subsidizes certain stuff in the interest of commerce. Boeing is not going to build roads around here, but they've sure threatened to pull out if the State does not do this. There is a theory that there are certain things we do as a community to encurage commerce. Oh, and then there are the tax cuts for corporations and subsidies directly to them, etc. I wonder if the anti-tax crowd here would agree that those corporate subsidies should go away.

User taxes are still taxes. I sure don't disagree with them, but you should hear the Washington State neocons squeal when they hear of a proposal to raise the gas tax. My friend Gaijindabe disagree on many things, but perhaps this is not one? If so, then he and I may be two of the few people who seem to understand that gubmint is not a funding source but rather a pass-through mechanism, and that public structures like roads, bridges and water utilities are constructed like anything else.....with money.

Then again, maybe John has verbalized the conservative vision for the future. Used oil dumped directly into our aquifers, everyone with a 4WD so that we can tear cross-country and avoid highway taxes, maybe avoid highways altogether, etc. Anarchy is correct. The ultimate result of ultimate deregulation.

I just don't accept the premise that Thom starts with -- our infrastructure is not crumbling.

I say that living in the highest traffic-corridor in the country, and driving on some roads that are embarrasments... but not every road (esp. those which are the most used and most used by heavy/commercial traffic) is going to be in good condition all the time.

Major urban center road transportation infrastructure is under extreme use and duress, and it's going to show wear .. especially in areas that have real winters, which halves the amount of time in any given year that roads can be worked on.

But to say our infrastructure is crumbling ... given what it's got to support, I have to ask, compared to what is it crumbling?

Amtrak is our transportation/infrastructure disaster area, and that's government run... coincidence? {gratuitous Supe baiting}

JP

Now, I think we're getting somewhere in this discussion, which means some conservative cretin needs to thrash the discussion before we notice that gubmint has a role. Or at least that we need the things we say we need.

Uh oh. Supe is getting into

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1110490819.gif

mode...

(disclaimer)
Okay, Supe, I'll take your bait, but only because I was gonna post this anyway...btw, this is the first time all day that I've been called a cretin...:D
(end of disclaimer)

See? Here's proof to my earlier point. If this jackass had to pay use tax, he probably wouldn't be facing up to 5 years in jail. SHEESH! :eek:

Randy

This is a doozy - the BQE, rather the Brooklyn Queens Expressway is jammed up with construction for 2 years. An elevated highway, one of the first and showing its age. Opposite Manhattan with more traffic than most interstates...

So, they get tear this road apart - then realise that they cannot get the American made steel they need to use by law in order to rebuild it. Duhhh!!! The last foundry making what they need has been shut years ago..

So then all the engineering needs to be re-done so smaller beams and joists (made in the USA) can then be sourced and fitted! Only only about 100 man-years in taxpayer life wasted in traffic and tie-ups during this debacle.

gumint may have a role, but they aint doing a good job!

Amen, g-man. Those are some of the very roads that I've got to endure; and the BQE was in my top 5 reasons to move out of Brooklyn.

But once you're out of the 5 boroughs, the roads are pretty good, given what they've got to put up with. Even the LIE (I can't believe I'm writing this) is in pretty good shape, it's just saturated w/ too many people.

JP

i feel your pain and i hear your arguement. i think the average time it takes for some engineer to go, "hmm, i think i should build this". to the first shovelfull of dirt is 10 years. effen lame. but with all the traffic studies and right of way issues, yada yada yada. it probably takes that long. problem is that in 10 years, a whole lotta life has already happened. like your steel mill, or that damn BUY AMERICA act. i promise, once they finish that project, it will already be outdated, especially in terms of capacity.

A conservative Republican legislator in my state is proposing a one cent per year gas tax hike for the next twenty years. Again, as I say, there is no debate in my legislature about whether we have a transportation crisis or not, and we have some VERY conservative legislators. The problem is throttling commerce (and peoples' lives also, which of course is just a minor, secondary consideration). Anyway, one of the local crack-pipe conservative think tanks is of course opposing this by whining about the compexity of these projects, and the time they take in planning, permitting etc.

So, above I notice some whining about that kind of stuff, but not really the same as the think tank whiners. I agree that it would be ideal if barriers could be overcome quickly. But I also know (and Vash knows) that these project do require substantial planning. Trust me, you would not want these projects going forward without adequate planning. When they do, even more eggregious mistakes are made. The think tank said, as if this is inappropriate, that the planning and permitting takes longer than the actual construction work. Being an insider, I was thinking "Yeah......and your point is.....?" Seriously. Vash. It simply does take time. On my project, an airport modernization, our poor contractors and engineers have at least three security agencies breathing down their neck, they've got planes loaded with humans and kerosene taxiing around heavy construction equipment, several local municipalites are impacted plus the State Patrol, Department of Ecology, yadda yadda. Again, if someone thinks we should cut some of these entities out of our discussions, then I'd like to hear who we should be ignoring.

Okay, at any rate, there is the steel sourcing matter above, related to the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. It is important to some people to keep American manufacturing jobs here. Or at least to NOT use public funds to help move contracts, and jobs, and whole employers outside the US. So, this requirement kinda makes sense. But steel prices have gone THROUGH THE ROOF. And y'know why? China. China is launching into an infrastructure investment craze that is taxing the world's supply of resources.

And some of my brilliant conservative instructors here seem to have the opinion that infrastructure is not that important. Someone should tell China this, before they waste more money.