Note: this is a cross-post from The Realignment Project. Follow us on Facebook!
Introduction:
If there is a common malaise of our time, it's short-term thinking in an era when long-term problems loom ever larger. Whether it's in health care, where Congress has decide that the only way for it to deal with the need to restrain doctors and hospital costs is to outsource it to an independent agency, or in climate change, where the Senate is flatly unwilling to pass even a moderate cap-and-trade bill (even though cap-and-trade was the free marketer's solution to climate change), or in dealing with the long-term budget deficit, where the right wing won't even countenance eliminating loopholes and the Democratic Party won't tax enough to end the deficit or spend enough to create a strong recovery. At the same time, the electorate has not even been approached in a way that might lead them to consider long-term consequences of their votes.
Today, I'm going to focus on one particular issue that has become emblematic of our long-term problems - our nation's infrastructure.