Inferior Structure

Teddy Roosevelt Elaborates

Posts here at Dredd Blog have wondered where the money went, following the largest infrastructure bill in U.S. history, passed a few years back.

For example, in one post, in December of 2009, Dredd Blog was still asking where the money went that had been approved for domestic infrastructure repair and rebuilding, in the 2005 bill signed into law by Bush II, representing the largest infrastructure bill in U.S. history.

Surely, with all the money spent on infrastructure, our systems in the United States are totally up to date, up to par, modern, working, fundamentally sound, and sophisticated.

Which is exactly and completely like any rich, well educated, great, leading, exceptional, and number one superpower, composed of hard working, tax paying, democratic, self-respecting, and concerned citizens would demand that it be!

The problem is that the money provided from the national treasury was evidently not spent on U.S. infrastructure, but there has been no complete or coherent answer to that question yet.

In today's post we will ask that question again, as well as asking "what has been done for other U.S. infrastructure, such as the energy grid and the water infrastructure?"

In that 2009 post, mentioned above, we pointed out that having the best infrastructure of any nation, as it should be, was not the case:

"The enormous bill -- 1,752 pages long" costing "$286.4 BILLION" known as "the highway bill" was the republican congress and republican president's bill passed in late 2005.

But it did not stop the Minnesota bridge from collapsing and killing American citizens, nor did it stop the great recession that is still ongoing.

So how is the next most expensive public works legislation in US history going to be any different?

The answer is that nothing is going to work until we stop destroying wealth with the stupid wars, the stupid military spending gone pork barrel wild, and the stupid military propaganda deciding our fate.

(Mega Infrastructure Bill To Make Jobs?). Consider also the fact that Teddy Roosevelt (1901-1909), was evidently the last president with sincere enough water infrastructure concern to do something about it:

Consider for a moment that much of our water infrastructure – the millions of miles of pipes, wastewater treatment plants, pump stations and drinking water treatment systems – dates to before the Roosevelt Administration and you start to get a picture of what we’re up against. (That’s Teddy Roosevelt, by the way.)

In fact, the American Society of Civil Engineers rated the nation’s water systems a D-, the lowest grades of any infrastructure including roads and bridges. Not surprising considering we lose some 6 billion gallons of treated water each day due to leaky and aging pipes, some 14 percent of the nation’s water use.

(Troubled Water Infrastructure). Meanwhile, trillions of dollars have been spent to destroy and rebuild infrastructure in foreign nations, and to build a vast spy-on-Americans system here at home.

Those trillions of dollars were not spent on infrastructure actually needed at home, in the nation we love, even though that money taken from us was ostensibly slated for infrastructure improvement here.

We also have been concerned with the energy grid as shown by posts such as "A Grid We Can Believe In" and "Grid and Bear It", for examples.

That energy grid, upon which U.S. electricity is distributed, is especially in need of improvement considering dependence on foreign oil (America's Changing Energy Choices).

None of this needed infrastructure improvement is going to take place, unless and until the eradication of the robber barons takes place, first.

The next post in this series is here.