However, I am not going to get too excited about any of this, because it isn’t going to happen, not in the foreseeable future, anyway. The reasons for this are exactly two. The Republicans, who control the state senate, are opposed to almost all of it.
Plus, there isn’t any money. Make that, there is less than no money. We’re cutting like mad, and using the stimulus to cover the deficit. Next year there will be a bigger deficit.
You can tell the Democrats aren’t really serious about this because they didn’t put a price tag on it, not even a phony one. The Republicans have a plan too, which they aren’t quite willing to reveal, but will include voluntary incentives to get more people to sign up for health insurance. Nothing wrong with that.
But while there is some encouraging talk of bipartisan cooperation, there is no sign that the state and its taxpayers are ready to pay for expanded health care.
Now here’s something maybe even more important than the health care crisis and which got virtually no attention in the press yesterday. A new report shows that our state is falling apart.
Literally, falling apart. Our infrastructure, our roads and bridges, sewers and drinking water systems. The American Society of Civil Engineers of Michigan gave the state’s infrastructure an overall grade of D, as in dog. The report is more than sobering.
It is scary. It says our roads and bridges are in the worst shape, with more than a quarter of the state’s bridges in trouble and more than a third of our roads in poor shape. What’s more, things are going to get worse very soon. Michael Thelen, vice president of the non-partisan engineering group, said the state’s wastewater systems have been functioning for decades longer than they were built for.
Ninety percent of the state’s dams will officially wear out within the next decade. He estimated that it would take six billion dollars to bring these systems up to date. You may think that’s an outrageous amount of money, at least until you wake up to a basement full of raw sewage with nowhere to go.
What’s happening is that for many years we’ve been allowing civilization’s underpinnings to fall apart because they mostly can‘t be seen, and spending on them isn‘t sexy. Experts say we need $3 billion a year just to maintain our current system of roads and bridges. Right now we are only spending half that much.
State Representative Pam Byrnes, chair of the House Transportation Committee, gets how important this is. “We must have action, and I will lead the charge,” she said yesterday.
Fine. But she is term-limited and will be gone in a year and a half, and fixing this will take much longer. There’s a lot that needs fixing in this state, and we’d better get started soon.
Doom & Gloom......
YAWN.....
Posted by: Thrasher | May 14, 2009 at 08:59 AM