The baby in the bath water...

Is it possible to mention "New Deal" yet without starting a meltdown?

Let's put away the question of whether or not FDR and Congress had the authority to tax and spend the way they did, and let's not talk about what the defined goals of New Deal were and whether or not they succeeded. There are certain undeniable facts that arose from New Deal that we can still see, feel and measure today, and none of them are greater then the expansion of our national infrastructure.

There are arguments that can be made that more than 1/3 of the entire nation was brought into the 20th Century in the decade of New Deal. More than a million miles of power lines, 600,000 miles of paved roads, 176,000 bridges and 3500 dams. Levy systems in 27 states that still have yet to be totally counted and catalogued. With the extension of the power grid to places that never had them (like the entire state of North Dakota), farms and rural communities gained more than just street lights and cheap water heaters... they gained a degree of regional prosperity that lasted for the next 50+ years.

For the last 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers has given the United States as a WHOLE a national score of "D" in regards to the state of our infrastructure. The levy failure in New Orleans after Katrina, the I-35 bridge collapse in Minneapolis, the failure of the fly-ash dam in Kentucky. Comparatively speaking, even Italy has managed a score of "C" as a nation... and most pundits look at Italy as a "second world nation" in nearly every catagory there is.

There are two relatively small but absolutely vital bridges here in my county of Wyoming, PA that were built during New Deal. Since moving here, I can't say that I have looked at either of them very carefully UNTIL they were being repaired and replaced recently. The rails on either side of the bridge are concrete piers with wrought iron metal work between them... and the piers are just as rotted as the rusty iron work. There are holes in the road deck that show not only the water beneath the bridge... but quite a bit of rebar as well. The State DOT has been working on these bridges now since November last, and while the one-lane traffic is annoying, I can't complain that it is unneeded.

Of all the hundreds of billions that the Obama Administration spent since 2008 in "stimulus", how much of it could have gone to putting the crumbling state of our national infrastructure right? I don't mean resurrecting the WPA or the CCC... but surely there are firms and contractors that could have bid on jobs repairing bridges, roadways and dams across the nation, putting thousands of people back to work in a time when unemployment was at a 35 year high. Of all the billions spent in "stimulus" can anyone point to something tangible that can be felt/seen/touched and say THERE IS OUR MONEY AT WORK?

Will another failure of even bigger proportions need to happen to get the country to recognize this danger? The Oakland Bay Bridge has been unsafe for more than 18 years, and the Hudson River's Tappen Zee is at even higher risk. There are levy systems all around St Louis, MO that are not only unsafe, but uncatalogued and thus outside of the inspection and repair network. Since the blackout of 2003, cities like New York, Albany, Newark and Boston have known that another blackout lasting weeks (even months) is entirely possible, given the current state of the "grid" in the NE. Imagine that... 21 million men, women and children without power for as long as WE were without power on the Gulf Coast after Katrina. What kind of economic disaster could that turn into?

More later...