NYT editorial: A Chance to Build Again

[ProSense]

Editorial

A Chance to Build Again

Many of the 85,000 dams in the United States are so old — an average of half a century — that every time one is repaired, two more become dangerously weak. Cities across the country discharge billions of gallons of untreated wastewater into rivers and lakes, and more than a quarter of all bridges are either deficient or obsolete.

The statistics are both frightening and familiar, though they tend to come up only in the “crumbling infrastructure” articles that appear after major disasters. In practice, government — with its lack of cash and consensus — keeps most of these projects on distant back burners until people actually lose their lives.

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Last week, though, a bipartisan group of senators came up with a promising idea to get some of these projects started, and very possibly put thousands of people back to work by doing so. The proposal, to create an infrastructure bank that would lend out seed money, represents a refreshing break from the extremist culture of cutting for the sake of cutting that grips Washington and so many state capitals. That culture blocks vital investment just to avoid sensible tax increases.

The proposal was presented by John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts; Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas; and Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia. The bank would lend money to build big-ticket transportation, water and energy projects that have a clear public benefit. The loans, or loan guarantees, would be designed to attract private capital as well. In fact, at least half a project’s financing would have to come from the private sector. As much as $640 billion could be leveraged this way over the next decade, proponents say.

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[golfguru]

1. Should be reapaired, but we have 2 choices

1. borrow more money to repair them and pass the debt on to young generations
2. increase taxes and cut all spending (includes entitlements) and repair all the old infrastructure

The choice #2 will hurt me but I am OK with it.

[jwirr]

2. Well, I am not okay with #2. If that were put into effect you would have

just killed my severely disabled daughter. She is dependent on medical assistance. Maybe that is okay with you but I looks like a death panel to me.

[golfguru]

12. Health rationing exists in UK, Canada, France, and

every other country, in some form. No country has enough money to cover unlimited medical
care for every citizen needing it. It will be here sooner than you realize.

I am truly sorry about your daughters medical problem. Is it fair that my children and grand children
inherit the debt burden for your daughter's care? Like I said in my post above they can cut my Medicare
and my social security. But I can not go along with burdening the future generations
with debt with no fault of theirs.

[jwirr]

19. I have great grandchildren who are paying for my daughters care

with their tax money. It is the only reason they are very willing to pay taxes. Thank you for the offer anyhow. By the way children like my daughter a well cared for in all the countries that you mentioned.

[karynnj]

22. Then raise taxes even more - we are paying historically low tax rates

[golfguru]

26. Higher taxes are certainly part of the mix

but that alone will not solve the humongous national debt.
Soon we will be paying Trillion dollars EVERY YEAR to service the debt.
Entitlements are the lions share of spending and must be addressed before
the country has a total financial collapse and bankruptcy.

[marginlized]

3. Right, because those SSI Aristocrats are just

draining our National Treasury. :eyes:

[golfguru]

11. Entitlements constitute 2/3rds+ of federal budget

The debt will keep increasing unless entitlements are addressed.
The bi-partisan debt commission appointed by the president reached that
conclusion. They might have more facts and resources to dig them up than you or me.

[ProSense]

18. Which

"The debt will keep increasing unless entitlements are addressed.
The bi-partisan debt commission appointed by the president reached that
conclusion. They might have more facts and resources to dig them up than you or me."

...entitlements related to the debt would you accept cutting and how?


Krugman

[golfguru]

25. I would follow recommendations of the debt reduction commission

Like I said I have no resources to match their research.

[Zoeisright]

4. Bull shit.

Spending on programs like this MAKES money for the treasury. Learn a little about economics before you post this crap.

[golfguru]

13. Did you even bother reading my post?

I said I am FOR these projects!

[bahrbearian]

5. Are we "entitled " to never ending war?

[golfguru]

10. We can NOT afford ANY wars

We have 800 military bases around the world.
We still have thousands of troops in Germany & S.Korea!
We are fighting 3 active wars!

So answer is...stop all wars, bring the troops home for defense only, not offense.
And close all 800 bases around the world, and cut military budget in half immediately.

[girl gone mad]

7. The Federal government doesn't have to borrow to spend.

Besides, passing on broken infrastructure to future generations would hamper their ability to meet their own needs, let alone to compete globally, which would cause much more harm than some nominal debt.

[golfguru]

9. Do you know we are $14,000 Billion in debt already?

The interest at 5% on that debt is $700 Billion per year.
5% is the long term interest rate average over last 50 years.
Can you imagine what we can do with $700 Billion per year?
--we can cover health insurance for every living person in the country earning below average wages
--we can also pay for college education for every student qualified to attend college
--we can pay for all education from K-12

The real sad fact is that debt will increase by $1500 Billion this fiscal year.
That means intrest expense goes up another $75 Billion EVERY YEAR.

[girl gone mad]

14. We could pay off all of our debt tomorrow, if we wanted to.

Not sure what you're so concerned about.

The current average interest rate is closer to 3%, not 5%. Despite years of hysterical warnings from neoliberal deficit hawks about impending soaring rates, rates have stayed persistently low.

[golfguru]

15. How? we have no budget surplus as far as the eye can see.

[girl gone mad]

16. We have a sovereign fiat currency.

All of our debt is issued in our own currency.

[golfguru]

24. Haha if we printed $14,000 Billion of paper money

we will repeat the experience of pre-WWII Germany where people needed
a wheel-barrow full of cash to buy groceries.

And we all know what followed in Germany after that.

[girl gone mad]

17. delete

dupe.

[karynnj]

21. This proposal actually is a third way

In that it leverages a relatively small amount of money and it is a public/private enterprise. I think the current debt is too high, but think that the Republicans are overstating it - as carrying some debt is no problem at all. I favor raising taxes to cutting most things they are speaking of cutting - though it will hurt me.

[Mimosa]

6. How can 'we' afford this?

'We' have to play top cop all over the world.

[Sirveri]

8. Screw that noise, we've got us some brown folks to bomb!

:sarcasm:

God forbid the rich actually pay for anything they use, but they're not interested in us anymore, they just want our military.

[zalinda]

20. Let me get this straight

It is being proposed to lend money for "big-ticket transportation, water and energy projects" and half of the money would have to come from private sources. So that means the proposal is for PRIVATE industry to take over "big-ticket transportation, water and energy projects", instead of government entities? Okay, then. So all this means is that places that will give back PRIVATE industry the most profit, will get the projects. And, of course, PRIVATE industry wouldn't even conceive of using union labor, they'll hire the cheapest labor they can find.

I liked FDR's plan better.

zalinda

[ProSense]

23. No

that's not the idea.

Bob Herbert: The Master Key

It will be a government-owned entity subject to Congressional oversight. Think of it more like the TVA in terms of Economic Development

TVA helps strengthen the Tennessee Valley region’s economy by building business and community partnerships that bring jobs to the region and keep them here. TVA’s reliable, competitively priced power makes the region an attractive place to start or expand a business.

•Helped attract or retain more than40,500 jobs
•Leveraged more than $4.3 billion in capital investment