In light of the MN bridge disaster, how much do you think the US infrastructure will be improved?

[Poiuyt]

This reminds me of the big power blackout in the Northeast a few years ago. Everyone was talking about how outdated the power grid was and how it needed to be improved. When was that, 2003? Has anything been done?

[ThomWV]

1. Not a bit - it will be forgotten in 2 weeks.

[Buzz Clik]

2. It will be handled at a local (state) level.

Unless more bridges start collapsing, nothing will happen.

Our learning curves are nearly flat, and our attention spans are short.

(The broadcast media are hoping for another drunken actress to be tossed in jail to give them something less substantial to obsess over)

[sinkingfeeling]

3. Nada. We, as the country that put Bush in the WH and turned control of it over to the

Neo-Cons, have decided we'd rather spend every dime of tax revenue on one of three things: Empire (includes massive military expenses), tax breaks for multi-millionaires, or pay raises for Congress. That's it... nothing else should be funded.

[Raksha]

4. I don't think it will be improved at all, unless we get out of Iraq.

Where's the money supposed to come from? EVERYTHING ELSE is being shortchanged because of Bush's imperial ambitions and the Repuke cult of salvation through tax cuts. I'm surprised more bridges haven't collapsed by now.

[northernsoul]

5. my semi-naive hope

is that this was the wake-up call that we need a "new" New Deal. New Orleans should have been it, but I think that once people realize that catastrophic failures of public infrastructure can happen in prosperous, straight-laced cities in the Midwest, they will realize that the Republican vision of "government small enough to drown in the bathtub" is a threat to all us, everywhere.

[Benhurst]

6. Not much, if at all. We must save our resources for our Crusade

in Iraq. The military/industrial needs every cent it can get its hands on over the table or under it.

[robinlynne]

7. halliburton will get billion dollar contracts...

[The_Casual_Observer]

8. If there is a depression, it'll all be fixed with WPA-like slave labor.

Otherwise the whole place is going to be as run down as Cuba soon.

[irislake]

9. As long as Republican politicians succeed in making

taxes such a dirty word in your country you will have a problem. Taxes pay for good things!

But as long as your governments find wars to fight your taxes will be spent on everything but the things that make life pleasant, safe, and kind.

But wasn't this the plan? To drown government or some-such-thing? Privatize everything possible? So who cares about public bridges and roads?

This will go nowhere. The right wing is too powerful there.