Bob Herbert gives props to JK re infrastructure . (plus related oped in Globe)

[MBS]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/12/opinion/12herbert.html?_r=1&hp

We are not in a state of emergency. We’re in a moment when it is possible to look thoughtfully at the American landscape and take rational steps to ensure a better, more sustainable future.

But we’re not doing that. The big news out of Washington this week was Representative Peter King’s Muslim witch hunt. Policy makers at all levels of government are talking austerity — sometimes sensibly, but most often mindlessly. Creative ideas regarding energy, education, jobs and so forth have trouble even getting a hearing.

Now comes Senator John Kerry hoping to buck the frustrating tide with a modest proposal. He mentioned in a speech in January that through most of its history America could build things — not just manufacture goods, but build the infrastructure that is required for a nation to be great: “We built a transcontinental railroad. We built an interstate highway system. We built the rockets that let us explore the farthest edge of the solar system and beyond.”

But that time has passed, and it’s not an overstatement to say that unless we atone for our infrastructure sins the high tide of American greatness will have passed as well. . . .

Senator Kerry will introduce legislation next week to create a federal infrastructure bank — officially, the American Infrastructure Financing Authority — to provide loans and loan guarantees to large, essential infrastructure projects. . .
Creation of an infrastructure bank would be an important indication that leaders in Washington are still capable, despite most of the available evidence, of moving beyond partisan paralysis to engage one of the biggest challenges facing the country. . . .

I sometimes try to imagine New York City without its subways, or the United States without the interstate highway system. Those kinds of projects could not be built today. Try to imagine life in the 21st century without the Internet. Imagine if we had never gone to the moon.

Maybe that’s what’s missing today. The ability to imagine.

A similar theme is voiced forcefully and eloquently (though without mention of JK) by Renee Loth in today's Boston Globe . . .
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2011/03/12/no_silver_lining_in_gops_clouds/

WHATEVER HAPPENED to “Morning in America?’’

Today’s Republicans have abandoned the muscular optimism of their hero, Ronald Reagan, who made most Americans feel good about themselves even as he was bashing welfare mothers and air traffic controllers . . .
Now Republicans have hit the dimmer switch. A glummer group of gloom-and-doomers would be hard to find outside of a mortician’s convention.. .
The Republican vision of America is a cramped place of limited prospects — not blue-sky, just blue. To hear them tell it, we live in can’t-do nation. We can’t educate our children. We can’t afford a first-class transportation system. We can’t regulate the safety of our air and food and water. We can’t operate highway rest stops or public parks. We can’t even keep our criminals in prison.

And we really, truly, can’t tax rich people a penny more to help pay for these other things.. .
It’s galling to watch the Republicans, who merrily drove up deficits over the past decade, now use their supposed penury to kill government programs they never liked to begin with . . .
“We’re determined to stop the agenda Americans have rejected and turn the ship around,’’ . . . Mitch McConnell said . . .

OK. But when does “determined’’ start to look defeatist?. .
The larger point, though, is that the country is not broke. Not unless these doomsayers believe the economy will never recover, that sales and income tax revenues will never bounce back, or that it is never possible to ask hedge fund managers, for example, to pay the same rate on their income as their secretaries. Republicans are forever comparing government to a family living beyond its means. Such a family always has two options: cut expenses, or increase income.

The Republicans are hoping that a panicked citizenry won’t ask how the richest country on earth got too poor to keep its streetlights on. The truth is that America is not poor — except for its poverty of vision.

[beachmom]

1. Thanks for the find, MBS!!

I think Japan's investment in their infrastructure has been extremely important in saving lives. Although so many were lost, many more would have been if it hadn't been for how their buildings were secured to deal with earthquakes.