Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Crumbling U.S. ? a rebuilt Iraq

Commentary by Pat Murphy


By PAT MURPHY

Pat Murphy

If written as a plot for a Peter Sellers Inspector Clouseau movie, it would be hilarious -- an army attacking and reducing a country to rubble, then the generals urgently calling politicians back home for billions of dollars to rebuild what they've just destroyed.

But that's reality today. President Bush and Congress are bundling up billions of dollars to rebuild Iraq's streets, water and sewer systems, dams, highways, airports, schools, hospitals.

Meanwhile, back home, another desolate reality -- the same type of infrastructure being rebuilt in Iraq (and other countries with U.S. aid) is crumbling before the eyes of politicians so quick to send big bucks abroad.

The scandal is that U.S. systems and facilities that support daily public life have been in some instances as rundown as countries receiving American aid.

The American Society of Civil Engineers, whose alarms seem to go ignored, estimates that just to get U.S. systems and facilities up to par would cost $1.6 trillion over five years.

This appalling neglect continues even as Congress loads up spending bills with projects that do little to improve lives or make America safer -- such as a silly plan to build a Lawrence Welk museum or the $315 million bridge to an Alaskan island of 50 people to immortalize the name of Republican Rep. Don Young.

Crumbling infrastructure is not merely an esoteric engineering concern. Real consequences ensue. How about American motorists spending 3.5 billion hours in traffic delays because of inadequate roads and highways, wasting 5.7 billion gallons of fuel, not to mention adding tons of poisonous particulate emissions to the air and hobbling economic activity?

Neglect has an evil twin -- poor workmanship. Investigators have concluded that New Orleans levees, as a graphic example, were not up to the power of Hurricane Katrina.

The engineering society has graded U.S. systems -- D-plus for airports; D for public schools; D-plus for transit; C-plus for solid waste disposal; D-minus for drinking water, and C-minus for public parks, recreation, rail systems and security.

These are ratings for the once-great exemplar of industrial excellence, the nation that wants to export democracy and its way of life.

Each year that improvements are delayed, vital systems and facilities become more dangerous and inefficient and, if and when repair and rebuilding begin, costs are that much higher.

The United States has blithely promised Iraqis that the U.S. would rebuild their country.

Americans should live so long to hear politicians make the same promise about caring for their own country's public facilities.




 Local Weather 
Search archives:


Copyright © 2024 Express Publishing Inc.   Terms of Use   Privacy Policy
All Rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Express Publishing Inc. is prohibited. 

The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.