☭proletarian☭;1923350 said:
The Left has started this "our infrastructdure is falling apart" song and dance since about 1992 when they saw it as a way to stop "growth" in the name of stopping "sprawl." Once they moved into that realm they began to see the opportunities it offered, to control everything outside the self. Of course the "self" part comes under "health-care reform"
Caveat Emptor!
Home | Report Card for America's Infrastructure
If you don't want a strong America, you're free to go fuck yourself.
Of course I want a strong America, and instead of exercising my freedoom in the way you suggest, I have exercised that freedom to learn how the system actually operates.
You seem to be starting from scratch in that regard. Fine, we need better informed citizens.
Civil and professional engineers want work to do. The report card appears to indicate that. I'm fine with any of it, but the decisions need to be made on a local level with local districts taking responsibility for at least a part of the cost of what is done in those districts. That is how it works now and it works well.
How was the work done on Atlanta's water system that the video shows? It was done there the way it should always work: they identified a problem, they consulted with several engineers who offered possible solutions and cost estimates (only estimates, not hard figures) and guided by those estimates, bids were requested and obtained, then financing applied for through the Federal Government, bonding vehicles issued, for the work to procede. The local government entities remain involved - as they always do - and the subscribers (local taxpayers or customers to government services) are invited to public meetings for informative purposes.
The feds payed for part of the work through grants, and provided the necessary financing for the rest to be paid off through future revenues from the locals who enjoy the benefit of the infrastructure improvements. The same for schools. A major departure is the interstate highway system, but there too the interstate highway system belongs to the states. The federal role is to oversee it, and provide the same sort of backing I described above, with the taxes paying for most of the work from
targeted gasoline taxes.
Most districts can, and do readily identify their own needs. There are plenty of local professionals who are familiar with what needs to be done, and if they knew that grants and financing for their share was available, they would jump at the opportunity. Counties throughout the US have highway/bridge engineers who understand their highway and transportation needs, health departments who know the hazards inherent in the sewage, stormwater, and potable water needs, school boards their brick-and-mortar building needs, etc. Having the locals, except in overarching national needs like the improvement of the Interstate highways, is the only way to efficiently focus resources of capital where it is needed.
An example of the federal government providing total control on the ground is the levees in New Orleans, LA. There we see failure of bureaucracy. The best incentive for good work which should originate at the local level is little more than informing the locals that funding/financing is readily available. My fear, and it seems to be espoused by you - and not necessarily by the civil and PEs - is that we need an overarching authority to take charge. What's actually needed, more than anything else is financial incentives which would move things forward, and that includes TAX INCENTIVES, and more care in regulating in a more positive way.
In a parallel thread on infrastructure I described some of these provisos; you can CLICK HERE to see my input on that thread -
Minneapolis Bridge Collapses.. I watched your video. Read this and you might learn something you've missed so far
I stand by my statement in your quote. The left -
and I'm not assigning the same motive to you - wants the nations infrastructure entirely in the federal grasp. They do it by promoting fear to a very large degree. I think the engineers are lobbying for work, and all their grades ought to be raised by one grade level; but regardless they do us a service by speaking up.
