Every politician likes to say they’re for infrastructure investment. That was the mantra in all quarters while the stimulus sausage was being made, after all. But it’s a very easy thing to say. A new bill in the House will offer an interesting opportunity to see who’s really on board.
Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D, Ore.) has introduced legislation that would throw a much needed $10 billion per year toward our water infrastructure, recently assessed as being in “D-minus” condition by the American Society of Civil Engineers. There’s no shortage of facts to support this glum assessment: more than 70,000 miles of water pipes are more than 80 years old; there were a quarter million water main breaks last year; we’re flushing billions of gallons of raw sewage a day into our soil and waterways; and so on. The investment deficit is something like $20 billion a year right now, so this is a very respectable stab at addressing the need. Plus, the congressman calculates that the bill will create 250,000 jobs — of the productive, lasting, and “on American soil” variety too, we’d note.
The measure, which has a bipartisan group of cosponsors, would pay for itself with a series of small taxes: 4 percent on canned and bottled beverages (a rather water-dependent industry); 3 percent on products that get flushed into the sewer system like Charmin Plus with Soothing Lotion and Axe Body Wash; a half a percent on pharmaceuticals, which tend to wind up in the wastewater system one way or another; and a generalized 0.15 percent corporate tax, since commerce tends to require access to water.
It sounds like a very good bill, and we’ll be tracking it. As Blumenauer points out, we’ve recently been spending only $2 billion per year at the federal level on clean water. This is water for #&$@’s sake–the most essential human need after oxygen. This a classic case where everybody needs to just act like a grown up and scrape together a little dough to pay for these fundamental structures that make our society possible. Even more fundamental than F-22’s, one might argue.
July 15th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Another perfect example of a certain form of infrastructure, whose importance and lack of upkeep goes completely unnoticed until something drastic happens/is happening. This sounds pretty good to me, especially considering the small amount of taxes that would be required for this large yearly investment.
July 15th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Sounds like a good idea. That means it doesn’t stand a chance.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Heh. Sad but true.
July 15th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
so, if i’m not mistaken, our country requires a massive infastructure rebuild on multiple levels.
1. water and sewage
2. power transmission grid
3. clean energy (investment in solar/wind/nuclear)
4. medium to medium-long distance passenger transit via high-speed rail for select corridors and a refurbished standard-speed network for the rest of the country
5. a ’steel interstate’ for freight transport
6. local rapid transit and public transit for every medium to large city
7. refurbishment and repair of the bridges and roads our cars drive on
for fun we could toss in the ports, wall street and the food supply
that cover everything?
July 15th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
^^^^Basically. Thirty plus years of neglect, tax cuts, and a bloated military budget will have that effect.
July 16th, 2009 at 2:04 am
Impose a tax on toilet paper and subsidize beans to entice Americans to take more dumps. Our country depends on your dumps to fund the future!
July 16th, 2009 at 8:47 am
“This is water for #&$@’s sake–the most essential human need after oxygen.”
…but I thought the most essential human need was oil.
July 16th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
These comments are so snarky!
The sad truth is, the more I learn about our infrastructure, the more I realize just how misplaced our priorities are. Everyone, including the officials elected to run things, seems to have decided about 30 years ago that the infrastructure was built, so upkeep was no longer a going concern. And now we have interstate bridges collapsing in the middle of Minneapolis and water mains flooding the streets of our capital’s suburbs.
July 21st, 2009 at 12:02 pm
More LEFTIST baloney. Milwaukee dumps 4 billion gallons of raw untreated sewage into Lake Michigan each summer, and has for the last 10 years, because of greed over more tax dollars from the suburbs that overwhelmed the system. The Sierra club has said, “Oh, it’s ok. They’re doing the best they can.” Sure, because Milwaukee’s government is COMMUNIST. But if it had been an evil, rich, capitalist corporation doing even 1 gallon of dumping, or worse yet a Conservative Milwaukee government, The Sierra Club would be out there protesting and suing. So environmentalism is not, nor has ever been, about “saving the planet.” It’s about DESTROYING CAPITALISM. By contrast, the Holy Grail for the Left, the Exxon Valdez, spilled 10 million gallons. Once. Katrina swept through the Gulf of Mexico past hundreds of oil wells…not one of them spilled. We invented nuclear power, and you Leftists destroyed it. A SECOND new oil field was just discovered in North Dakota that’s 100 times bigger than Saudi Arabia. But you won’t let us drill. Cuba, before your hero Che Guevarra….and mass murderer I might add…privatized businesses like your commie Obama, used to have the 8th highest per capita income in the world. Now look at it. America is about freedom, and that means…yes….CAPITALISM. GET OUT OF MY COUNTRY. YOU WANT TO BE A COMMIE, MOVE TO CUBA. MOVE DOWN WITH YOUR BUDDY CHAVEZ. MOVE TO RUSSIA. GET OUT.
July 21st, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Doug,
I appreciate the enthusiasm. And I was kinda betting you had an AOL address.
-JR