I work on E. coli, and I have to say that I am enraged, indignant, and outright upset over the hideous injustice of linking so noble and useful an organism as E. coli with so odious a political "philosophy" as modern "conservatism"! Work with E. coli has led to enormous scientific advances, and been the subject of innumerable graduate theses that have launched many a great scientific career (hopefully mine one day, too). I beg all of you to repudiate this injustice!

Sorry. I couldn't resist.

Seriously, though, this piece makes a good point. We are going to be facing decades of work to clean up the results of the "conservative" ideology of neglect of public resources and infrastructure in exchange for lower taxes (actually, isn't that perhaps the major defect of "conservative" ideology? I mean those taxes that would have been paid will have to be paid in the future by the future population when the inevitable breakdowns come and require repair. Isn't "conservatism" at its heart the orientation of all government and society purely at the current time with little or no thought as to the future? Considering that the bulk of the total population of America is still to be born, shouldn't we be more considerate of them when we make choices as to how the country runs in the present? With "conservatives" it is as though the future Americans of decades from now will never exist, or if they will, they will have to fend for themselves). It reminds me of back during the 2000 election, when there were all the debates as to what to do with the surplus. During that time, I read a piece, I don't remember where, pointing out that the entire projected ten-year surplus would be required just to make all the necessary repairs on our aging infrastructure. Given that Bush quickly squandered the surplus, those repairs were never made, and I can't imagine they have gotten any better. That is a little frightening, isn't it?

You're welcome. I made a promise, after all.

I think you are right about the foolishness being more generalized. I think the infrastructure problem tends reflect on America as a whole. We tend to be a bit spoiled, on the whole. If something new is being built, sure, we can stomach that, but we tend to do spit-takes at the bills for repairing the old infrastructure. Shouldn't things just, like, not break? That seems to be a prevailing attitude that really needs to change.

I tend to think that "conservatism" is perhaps more to blame for this because it provides ideological excuses to maintain that attitude. "Conservative" politicians have done quite well for the last couple of decades by encouraging that attitude, in fact. Liberalism is a bit harder to use to encourage this attitude, but I don't think liberals can be allowed off the hook, either. I think at least some of the infrastructure problems we face stem from liberals in the middle third of the last century over-building, with insufficient provision for upkeep of all that was built (I dearly love Huey Long, to go back a bit further, but his road building program provided decades of headaches to Louisiana in terms of up-keep because he didn't specify any way to deal with that task), nor, perhaps, sufficient quality control. Liberal policies, after all, helped to encourage the suburbinization of the American population, and a big part of the problem we have is the possession of far more infrastructure per-capita than we would have had with denser urban centers. Unfortunately, liberalism is very good at going creatively at big problems, but not so great at figuring out how future governments can deal with problems arising from those solutions (Hopefully progressivism will correct this as it develops). So there is perhaps my point: Liberalism wasn't forward-thinking enough about how to maintain the infrastructure it helped to create, but "conservatism" just didn't care. I tend to frown more on "conservatism" in this, because there is more cynacism to what it did. Perhaps, though, it is better that it worked out this way. Had liberalism been the prevailing political ideology the last few decades, there would have been many, many jury-rigged patches to the problems. By having "conservatives" in charge to let things get really bad, maybe we can do a better, though more expensive, repair job. Maybe that is just foolishly looking for a silver lining, though.

I agree with you on the pipe, but I see it as having provided an opportunity to bring to people's attention the larger problem of America's decaying infrastructure. It is undeniable that the "starve the beast" mentality of modern "conservatism" has exacerbated what would have been a problem anyway by removing the funds that would be needed and making it much more difficult to get the public to consider such large projects.

@Tyler_Mason

Yeah, and I think we can agree to disagree so long as we do agree that there is a big problem that needs dealing with. I really wish we could approach the problem as a nation in a way that discards ideology, and simply examines it as a problem that really needs to be dealt with. Take nothing off the table, and instead just figure out what would work. Wouldn't that be nice? Pie in the sky, for sure, but it would be nice. We will muddle through, somehow, though...just like we have in the past and all nations that have lasted multiple centuries have done.

That said, how will we really be able to call ourselves a great civilization if we can't even take care of our roads? I keep hoping for a leader to arise who will call us to build a better, stronger civilization, rather than just focusing on bits and pieces. If one doesn't come, maybe there will be a movement to force a change to that perspective. I can dream, cant' I?