It just occurred to me, a lot of people are pissed over the Minneapolis Bridge collapse not just because of the loss of lives, but the overall question of just what is the shape of our nation's infrastructure. Who is responsible for maintaining our roads, bridges, dams, sewers, power grids, etc?
Most people insist the government should put more money into maintaining these vital areas of infrastructure, and bemoan the money spent on Iraq.
One point here that should be made is that, technically,the war in Iraq is not taking a single dime from infrastructure investment. For that matter, it's not taking a dime from anything else, at lest not in the short term. The Iraq War remember, is the world's first, and hopefully last, credit card war. I seriously doubt that most of us would feel too comfortable about The People's Republic of China financing our infrastructure maintenance.
That leaves open the question of just who is responsible. It seems like a simple and uncomplicated answer at first glance.
The federal government is responsible for federal roads and bridges. State governments are responsible for state roads and bridges. County governments are responsible for country roads and bridges. City governments are responsible for city roads and bridges.
Unfortunately, where it gets murky is when you deal with just where this money comes from. A great deal of highway and bridge money used by the cities and counties comes from the states, and a great deal of that money, plus that which the state depends on for their own roads, seems to come from the federal trough.
This is exactly the reason why you are unlikely to come across a state where the legal drinking age is under twenty-one. No state wants to lose those federal highway funds.
Not that I have a problem with that particular law, but it does go to the point about how way too many even conservative Americans have become way too dependent on federal government in way too many areas of our lives, which is one of the more unfortunate outgrowths of The New Deal. States are in many ways artificial constructs, or have become so, with not much more autonomy than what I would assume a French Department has from Paris.
So, anyway, should the federal government repair the bridge over the Mississippi River? Well, if it is a federal road and bridge, of course they should. If it were a state road, then the state should be obliged to do it-with their federal funding, of course, or with FEMA money, which I am guessing this would qualify for.
The point is, whoever is responsible for putting the damn thing there should be responsible for fixing it, and should be obliged to do so. More importantly, all appropriate responsible parties should be obliged with maintaining all of our roads, bridges, tunnels, dams, sewers-and levees.
Whoever you are out there, time to show some responsibility and pull yourselves up by the bootstraps.
Oh, and in case the mayor of my little town might be reading this-remember, election day is coming up. My driveway could really use some new blacktop.
