Thursday
Jun122008
Mayors plead for funds to improve infrastructure
Thursday, June 12, 2008 at 1:23PM
The Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee held a full committee hearing on the condition of the nation’s infrastructure with four mayors from around the country. The chairman of the Committee, Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), said that a local perspective is necessary to determine how to invest in infrastructure. Dodd said that the current methods of investment are as obsolete as the investments themselves.
Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York City, said that the proposed national infrastructure bank would create a non-partisan system to provide funds to cities in promotion of such things as water treatment, railways, and roads. Bloomberg said that the deficiencies in infrastructure are too great for one city to bear and that the burden must be shared.
Shirley Jackson, mayor of Atlanta, said that the government has reduced its efforts on infrastructure overall. She added that there are simply not enough funds to cover the necessary improvements in water and sewage treatment in Atlanta. Mark Funkhouser, mayor of Kansas City (Mo.), said that the decline in funding for infrastructure represents an overall decline in productivity and that a better, apolitical method of funding is necessary.
Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York City, said that the proposed national infrastructure bank would create a non-partisan system to provide funds to cities in promotion of such things as water treatment, railways, and roads. Bloomberg said that the deficiencies in infrastructure are too great for one city to bear and that the burden must be shared.
Shirley Jackson, mayor of Atlanta, said that the government has reduced its efforts on infrastructure overall. She added that there are simply not enough funds to cover the necessary improvements in water and sewage treatment in Atlanta. Mark Funkhouser, mayor of Kansas City (Mo.), said that the decline in funding for infrastructure represents an overall decline in productivity and that a better, apolitical method of funding is necessary.
Reader Comments (2)
Funny how no one is noticing the elephant in the room. Crumbling infrastructure, pollution, lack of jobs, global warming, impending oil production fall-off, crop failures, poor education, etc., etc. What do all these things have as a root cause? Over-population. There are now 300M people in the U.S. This is twice two many. The U.S. was at it's most prosperous in the mid-1960s, when our population was only 165M. We simply cannot sustain the population we now have for long. It requires more resources than we have available and we can't buy our way out of the problem. It is time for the U.S. to deincentivize having more than two children and cut back on intensive health care for our most elderly and for those with untreatable fatal diseases. That sounds harsh and we quell at the thought of it, but by doing so, we will slowly reduce our population to a sustainable level. We then will have no need for the industrialized food system that is slowly killing us and a multitude of other things that makes our society so toxic.
Four steps to do:
1. Drill in all the proven Alaska oil fields now. Good for many years of lower-cost oil.
2. Fund a program with our exported oil (from step 1) to build NASA's Solar Energy Collector Satellities (deigned in 1997 by NASA). Zero pollution! Unlimited energy 24 X 7! Not one drop of imported oil! Creates good jobs in the US!
3. Charge IRAQ for the use of our troops, if they want them there. If not, get them h*ll out. Give our troops decent Veteran's benefits. We insult them with the cr*p they get today.
4. Make population control priority one, in ALL countries. No US subsidy if you fail to follow the population control rules. Period.