Infrastructure

Atrios notes a bit of news and makes the obvious point;

According to residents, the tragic disaster may have been preventable.

San Mateo Assemblyman Jerry Hill said he was "outraged" to learn that some residents had complained to PG&E about gas leaks in the neighborhood "for up to three weeks" before the explosion.

Hill said the pipe that ruptured was installed in 1948.

The problem in our economy right now is that demand is low. That happens when unemployment is high (those people don't have money to buy teevees), and people are freaked out and are saving much more money than they usually do. Normally saving money is a good thing, but it's actually counter-productive in the current economic climate.

Oddly, we know that everyone needs to spend money to get the economy rolling again, but we don't want to be the ones to actually do it because.. well.. we're nervous and want everyone else to take the chance and buy an expensive American made product.

That's where government can come in. Isn't that obvious?

There's a lot of infrastructure in this country that needs fixing and replacing. That's not something the "private sector" does on it's own, but the government can get a bunch of spendable money into the economy by hiring private companies to do all this work that needs to be done, and pay them a bunch of money to do it.

And hey.. while we're at it.. why not go beyond just fixing old shit that's breaking down (and injuring/killing people, ala bridge collapses)? Why not build high speed rail? Why not build super-networks? Why not create new and safe nuke plants, and improve the electrical grids? In areas like DF/W, where the city is massive and spread out, we need real, usable, community transportation.. not just one rail line running down the middle. I want to be able to walk a half mile to a station and 15 minutes later be in down town Dallas.. or at the new Football stadium.. or.. at a university.. or.. at a stop close to a friends house.

Why can't the richest nation in the world build all this shit? Why are millions of Americans just sitting around doing nothing because there's nobody hiring their skill set?

All this is really obvious, but we have a bunch of lunatics who think doing those sorts of thing is "socialist", and "unconstitutional".. and we have a bunch of politicians that are more concerned about getting re-elected then securing the future of this nation..

Because it makes sense to do.. and because it would be credited as a "Liberal" program.. we can't have that.