Our roads are cracked, potholed, and unevenly patched here, there, everywhere. Our bridges are failing, falling, and becoming frightening to drive on. Our public transportation systems are inadequate, irritatingly inefficient, and under serviced. Our schools are reducing if not completely eliminating extracurricular activities such as art, music, and even sports activities. Our Midwest and Southwest States are dealing with water shortages, farmers competing with city and industry for water access. Our middle class is shrinking. The rich are literally getting richer while… well, you’ve heard that line many times before.
I’m not a professional economist. Nevertheless, from my humble citizen-on-the-street layman’s point of view, it seems to me that we are a nation in decline. As I see it, the first sign of a declining nation is evidence in the state of its infrastructure. The second sign is evidenced by the economic health of its middle class. The third is the monetary policies of banking and industry—a question of who is prospering and how.
The sad thing is that it seems that (a) we could have prevented it and (b) could still correct it, but (c) have failed and continue to fail in doing so. And so, it appears that we will be facing more severe negative consequences in the future. And it’s not just a matter of reigning in the budget and spending less. It’s where and how we are allocating the money that we do spend now.
We are far from being a poor nation, as such. Neither are we an underdeveloped nation. Yet our infrastructure continues to deteriorate, as if we are indeed underdeveloped and most certainly poor. It is foreboding.
We want less government. So we think cutting back on social public services is a way to minimize big government spending. What we’re really doing is shooting ourselves in the foot. Government is about overseeing the public good, managing public needs? This is why I believe that the state of our infrastructure is a tell-tale sign that we are not doing well as a people, as a nation.
A nation’s infrastructure is not only about roads and bridges and public transportation. It is also about educating the next generation, for example. It is about sustaining a strong economy for the majority of its citizens, assuring a thriving and growing middle class. And it is about providing safety nets for the weak and vulnerable, the very young, the very old, and the marginalized—to provide hope and opportunity for upward mobility—such as giving the working poor a real chance to rise above poverty-level living.
So, for example, as I see it, having a strong military, but a weak and deteriorating infrastructure, is like having a few hours’ worth of extraordinary fireworks for one night; once ignited and spent, the show is over with no ability to recoup what was spent. Many nations and empires of history ended exactly that way, though they didn’t know it at the time. They never do. In other words, having lots of striking power with little ability to sustain any long term victory provides no security for any nation. It’s a shallow strength promising only hollow victories. That is to say that a nation’s real strength is in its day-to-day operations respecting the wellbeing of its people—and that means its infrastructure.
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