Infrastructure

[widebody911]

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

[kach22i]

ASCE
American Society of Civil Engineers

http://www.asce.org/

ASCE's mission is to provide essential value to our members, their careers, our partners and the public by developing leadership, advancing technology, advocating lifelong learning and promoting the profession.

.......a bunch of unAmerican commie bastards I bet.

[Moneyguy1]

I dunno...

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

Sounds like a plan..

[gaijindabe]

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.

[lendaddy]

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

[rcecale]

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.

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

Randy

[ronin]

Originally posted by lendaddy
I have also heard the fox lament the over spending on chicken coop security

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

[Superman]

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.

[Superman]

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.

[gaijindabe]

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!!

[kach22i]

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.

[rcecale]

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

[JavaBrewer]

Originally posted by widebody911
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

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

[john70t]

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....

[kach22i]

Originally posted by john70t
Wanna get to work? An ATV and a snowmobile will fit better in the garage.

I walk to work.................and have my hovercraft ready for such an event.

[gaijindabe]

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..

[vash]

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.

[Superman]

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.

[Overpaid Slacker]

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

[Superman]

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.