Posted on 03/16/2018 1:02:00 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
“MASON CITY: To get there you follow Highway 58, going northeast out of the city, and it is a good highway and new.”
— Robert Penn Warren, “All the King’s Men” (1946)
WASHINGTON — Appropriately, Warren began the best book about American populism, his novel based on Huey Long’s Louisiana career, with a rolling sentence about a road. Time was, infrastructure — roads, especially — was a preoccupation of populists, who were mostly rural and needed roads to get products to market, and for travel to neighbors and towns, which assuaged loneliness. Today, there is no comparably sympathetic constituency clamoring for “internal improvements,” as infrastructure was known in the 19th century when canals, and then railroads, transformed America.
What rural electrification was eight decades ago, broadband access might be today: a blessing not widely enough enjoyed. But infrastructure spending will not have the economically and socially transformative effect that it had before America became a mature urban society. Princeton historian James M. McPherson writes that before all-weather macadamized roads, it cost the same to move a ton of goods 30 miles inland as it cost to bring a ton across the Atlantic. The person who would become the 16th president began his public career advocating canal construction in Illinois, and in 1849, before he became a prosperous railroad lawyer, he received U.S. patent 6469 for a device to facilitate boats’ passages over sand bars and shallow water.
Some historians even suggest that there might not have been a Civil War for him to win if the fourth president, James Madison, had not vetoed (on constitutional grounds; he thought that no enumerated power authorized Congress to do such things) the infrastructure bill of South Carolina’s Sen. John C. Calhoun, who became a secessionist firebrand. . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
Bad timing for him, especially after the FL bridge.
Started to read this, then saw who wrote it. so, not wasting my time.
This egg head doesn’t have a clue about the possible technological advances that could be incorporated into a infrastructuring renaissance.
Atheist George Will is a GOP-e, Never Trumper who says we should just shut up and “bake the cake”.
I really did used to admire the man. Then he showed us who he really is...and I’m done thinking he wants us all to be free.
He wants to be in charge. No thanks.
We do have to admit that Obama infrastructure spending was a darn joke. A few bike paths for a trillion bucks! Wowza
That bridge catastrophe didn’t have anything to do with government spending.
And when Obama did it as a “stimulus” bill, we weren’t too happy with it.
What we need to do is kick out the illegals, and all of a sudden we won’t be needing to build new and expanded schools, airports, roads, etc. Then we’d have more than enough already budgeted for proper maintenance.
Shovel ready ping!
Bush League Republicans have another plan to transform America.
Import enough illegal aliens to turn the USA into North Mexico.
The bridge was brand new. It was, broadly speaking, the kind of infrastructure projects that we’re talking about.
During the Obama era, lots of infrastructure spending on walls along freeways. Billions for freeway walls to block sound, nothing to block illegal invaders. Misplaced priorities, the hallmark of democrats.
"We don't build anything. We PAY for stuff & government gives the $$$ to unions and cronies. Socialism is socialism no matter who does it.
I doubt very much that Trump will follow the same path. He was amazed when he heard the new White Fence was going to be 12 million. I think he sees waist every where.
I think he’s thinking big dreams, big ideas, bold undertakings.
I also think that he will be looking at transforming our country into a land of beauty. what if new road were made to accommodate electric or driverless?
George Will is a total fag.
Who you gonna believe Trump the builder or Will? Those sound barriers along freeways were unnecessary. Let the residents move and let the property value go down. Now Obamacare will take care of the kids that have to breathe that commute air.
Stick to boring baseball stories that no one reads, George.
And then when their "solutions" don't deliver what they promised, they blame "lack of resources" and "stingy taxpayers."
— Robert Penn Warren, “All the King’s Men” (1946)
I do need to read the book. Has anyone else read it?
Opinions?
Because nearly NOTHING got done. Billions of dollars to democrat donors and supporters, like Solyndra, and 'shovel ready' road jobs in Congressional Districts that never existed.
“”””We do have to admit that Obama infrastructure spending was a darn joke. A few bike paths for a trillion bucks! Wowza””””
They built a few bridges, some walls, some stuff here and there. But the trillion dollar giveaway in his first month was a way to give billions to friends and support those who supported the democrats.
I think he sees waist every where.
Nah. Trump sees waste. It was Bill Clinton who saw waist. :-) :-)
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