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Falling Further Behind
One section of the Maytown Elementary School in rural Maytown, Pa., was built in 1861. Another section was built in the late-1920s. There's a time clock in the ancient gym that was donated by the class of 1946.
This is a school that could use an update. No, scratch that. It needs to be replaced.
Shelly Riedel, superintendent of the Donegal School District, which includes Maytown, told me that teachers can't mount smart boards in their classrooms because of the asbestos "encapsulated" behind the walls. The asbestos is not dangerous as long as the walls are not disturbed. The electricity is not particularly reliable. A teacher who is using, say, an overhead projector has to check to make sure that other teachers are not using similar devices at the same time as that might cause an outage.
There is no air conditioning. And there is no money right now to replace the school, which has an enrollment of 237.
You can travel the United States and find comparable, or worse, conditions in schools throughout the country. It's part of the overwhelming problem of maintaining and modernizing American infrastructure. It's hard to even get good data on the physical condition of the nation's schools. But Lawrence Summers, President Obama's chief economic adviser, has said that 75 percent of the public schools have structural deficiencies and 25 percent have problems with their ventilation systems.
The Donegal district is planning to build a bare-bones regional high school with money from its general budget. The existing school, which was built in 1954, has many problems, including a sewage system that saw its best days when names like Eisenhower and Kennedy were on the mailbox at the White House. The proposal for the new high school does not even include an athletic field for the kids.
Getting the nation's schools up to date is an enormous problem, but it's only a small part of the overall infrastructure challenge. In Pennsylvania, a state in which the governor, Ed Rendell, is all but obsessed with infrastructure, there are still thousands of bridges that either need a lot of work or should be replaced.
Fifty-one miles of Interstate 95, the main north-south highway on the East Coast, make their way through southeastern Pennsylvania. Construction of the highway began more than a half-century ago, before Barack Obama was born. Rina Cutler, Philadelphia's deputy mayor for transportation and utilities, noted that long stretches of I-95 are now reaching the end of their useful life and will have to be rebuilt.
In a report titled "Just Because You Ignore It Doesn't Make It Go Away," Ms. Cutler wrote:
"These stretches require reconstruction that is conservatively estimated to cost $6 billion to $10 billion over the next two decades. This badly needed investment could be expected to support tens of thousands of jobs over that period. The Federal Highway Administration has estimated that every $1 billion of investment in the Federal Highway Aid program generates 42,100 full-time equivalent jobs."
Schools, highways, the electric grid, water systems, ports, dams, levees - the list can seem endless - have to be maintained, upgraded, rebuilt or replaced if the U.S. is to remain a first-class nation with a first-class economy over the next several decades. And some entirely new infrastructure systems will have to be developed.
But these systems have to be paid for, and right now there are not enough people at the higher echelons of government trying to figure out the best ways to raise the enormous amounts of money that will be required, and the most responsible ways of spending that money. And there are not enough leaders explaining to the public how heavy this lift will be, and why it is so necessary, and what sacrifices will be required to get the job properly done.
In an era of historically high budget deficits, the case has to be made that this is not wasteful spending but essential investments that will yield powerful returns. "If you're not willing to invest," said Governor Rendell, "you have to be willing to accept an inferior product. That's the danger we're facing."
There are sound ideas available for raising the money to rebuild America's infrastructure. These include, most prominently, a proposed national infrastructure bank, which would allocate public funds and also leverage private capital for the most important projects. In the absence of a national bank, it might be possible to establish regional infrastructure banks.
The point is that top government leaders should be seeking as many solid and creative ideas as possible, with the goal of moving with dispatch on the best ones. The only thing at stake is the economic future of the United States.
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41 Comments so far
Show AllThey will not rollback tax cuts for the rich in my state but are cutting education for the second year in a row.
Hey, if you want money for something, Just declare WAR on it and the trillions just come rolling in!!
the WAR on potholes!
the war on stinky drains!
The WAR on stupidness!
Just make it a matter of national security and funding is no problem. easy.
Next question?
And of course the idea of gradually replacing I95 with a different system is off the table. Gotta keep the oil oligarchs wealthy and contented!
And when politicians tout "tax cuts", MSM (propaganda) fails to timely show the consequences of such tax cuts.
It is also interesting how MSM can show unquestioned support for public spending on roads for vehicles, but when it comes to public transportation, MSM accepts politicians' argument that the users must bear the burden despite all benefiting from having less vehicles on the road.
War budget larger than the rest of the world combined---check
Tax breaks for billionaires---check
No interest cash infusions for cutthroat banks---check
Lowest corporate tax rate in the world---check
Highest doctor, hospital and pharmacy costs---check
No "Death" tax---check
Agribusiness multicorp subsidies---check
Lowest millionaire income tax rate---check
Amerikkka down the drain----"PRICELESS"
Sioux Rose
EAGLE BILL: Great post.
Can we add some negatives like:
Low investment in green technologies--check
Supreme Court paid for, lock, stock & barrel--check
Drug war still functioning without any viable results--check
Private army for hire as failsafe to corporate titans (should democrcy make a come-back)--check
Temp jobs on the rise precluding the "need" to provide employee health insurance--check
Right-wing "religious" authorities effectively creating the groundswell to roll back women's reproductive rights--check
Pharmaceutical Industry most profitable in the world - check
Agribusiness sickening and dumbing down and fattening up the masses with high fructose corn syrup and sick meat - check
Sioux Rose
Movie industry making war all "sexed up" all the time--check
TV industry dressing up torture as all in the line of patriotic duty--check
Know-nothing population that allows all of this to continue at will -check.
How can we afford to rebuild our country? We need trillions of dollars every year to "defend" ourselves from the greatest threat this nation has ever faced, little ragtag assh@les with AK47s half a world away.
THE USA - with its Monster "Defense" industry is like a GOLIATH that is frightened of every little mouse....
and so ...builds MORE monstrous armaments to "protect" itself...ABROAD where it has no business putting its armaments anywhere NEAR ANY other country ..which of course why it is a Global Goliath...and so that it can STAMP down every little mouse it can see...where the mice really are interested in just finding rice grains...
I'm said it for many years, that when the SF Bay Area has its mega-quake within 30 years, the dotcom and computer professionals are going to wander out of their shiny new, earthquake proof buildings and find that their children died in schools built before WWII.
Its possible that at that point, the cost to the nuclear family of America's love affair with the corporate family will finally be made clear.
Nothing will be done unless the elites running the country see that it's in their interest. Presently, our elites can make more money building infrastructure in China than here.
All of the comments below are right on the mark, much more perceptive than the article itself (big surprise). Two additions: 1) Saul Landeau's article at Counterpunch delineating the scope of the crime we call "Defense Spending", and 2) "Century of Self" on youtube, specifically the first 3 parts (as far as I've gone) in the segments called "8 People sipping Wine". I'd recommend the whole series, which someone else cited yesterday in a comment section. [Did you know that Edward Bernays was Sigmund Freud's nephew? If you don't recognize Bernays, you should, and his connection w/Freud is fascinating}
good refs thanks. Counterpunch and Globalreasearch.ca are great. Any Adam Cutis documentary is a must-see
Who needs infrastructure anyway, when we can all walk around in bubbles? What we need is a bubble bubble.
When we die our bubble explodes. No need for burial or cremation.
Speaking of death, are cemeteries part of our "infrastructure," because thousands of them are in really horrible shape. Not surprising, as we can hardly expect people who have no regard for the living to care for the memories of the dead. Except at pristine Arlington National of course.
-30-
The only value the masses have is in their labor.
Why waste money educating creatures that are going to spend their lives stooping?
Under the current legal and economic arrangement, it is cheaper to "brain drain" other countries talent and bring them in on H1-B visa programs (as Bill Gates advocates). That way we can ignore our own people and allow our education system to collapse. That way the wealthy don't have to pay a dime and can get something for nothing.
We don't need to invest in our own infrastructure because we outsource everything. Even the new SF/Oakland Bay Bridge is being outsourced to China.
It is all part of the neolib strategy of the ruling Oligarchy and ought to be clear by now.
Tell me about it socialist, I'm an English teacher who outsourced himself to South Korea!
ENJOY!!!
This WAS generally the way it was with the USA -- attracting foreign brains with its generally superior "highest school" qualities..which is still true .
but recently - because of the "SECURITY" state's growing :"requirements" and paranoia - more and more foreign "brains" have been electing to go abroad ELSEWHERE...such as Asians TO europe...or even - as in the case of China - US Educated professionals and graduates feeling the "Pull" of their homeland .
I definitely came across one chinese - NOT from teh mainland, but from Taiwan - who had advanced training from taiwan on computer "architecture" - and decided not to finish his doctorate in new york because he eventually agreed with MY suggestion and that of his girlfriend's back in taiwan that he was better off "back home" -- and look towards the mainland and the INEVITABLE coming around of taiwan and the mainland .
he kept complaining to me that his professors weren't really teaching him anything anymore ..so i told him:
"well -- what are you wasting your time and your father's money and your taiwan scholarhips and paying for an apartment in new york FOR? when with what you already have you can have a good position in taiwan and BEGIN to look to the future as the mainland becomes more significant for all of asia that even JAPAN - the most advanced there can no longer ignore?...wtih all your abilities and education and experience and the money your family has wasted here...why are you still in the USA? for the prestige of the education? maybe TODAY that is still strong in asia..but SOON that will no LONGER be the case...you should go BACK while you are ahead and BE among those that are leaders in its ascendance - or going back to where it left off centuries ago...the most vital and resourceful region on earth..starting with YOUR own people...the chinese".
Sioux Rose
What will probably happen is that I-95 in the most important stretches will become a toll road operated by a multi-national. What should happen? If the Wall st. frauds cum experts refuse to pay back their bonuses, with an added garnishing of their salaries, in lieu of going to jail, they get to work on the highway. A sort of "back to work community service" style project. That would begin to right justice in this land of the free... meaning those who thus far have gotten away with taking the money and running towards their strategically placed pre-paid sponsors.
Sioux Rose, for once I'm going to have to disagree with you on making the fat cats work construction on the grounds that those are good jobs. My uncle who is an elementary school teacher supplemented his income to raise his family on such projects. Additionally, my old neighborhood of 15 years was the one adjacent to the bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis. The rebuilding of the bridge brought many jobs to my community at a base pay of $17/hour with full benefits paid (granted you had to work 12 hour days, but you did get overtime, and they never turned anyone away that was willing to work. As such I understand how rebuilding our infrastructure would really benefit. Now, in South Korea, where you can't walk the sidewalk without bumping into a city employee sweeping or doing some kind of worthwhile project, it's easy to see the value in keeping everyone employed (and on national health care for that matter.) While I like the idea of making them work, I would give them a different job. Say....scrubbing the floors of the prison with a toothbrush. The author is right, there are so many good jobs that could be created this way, and the infrastructure needs are very numerous.
Sioux Rose
MYSTIC: I concede to your well-explained reasons for "other." On bad days, I'd like to see these people fed to the sharks... but today was a "good day." Actually the illustration you brought up segues into what's taking place with respect to prison labor. In so many areas the prisoners are doing the local industries' bidding for pennies on the dollar, just like the many off-shore new "colonies" where the global corporations have gone in pursuit of cheap labor pools. With 2 million incarcerated, this represents a considerable cheap labor force here in the homeland security state. In my mind, given the racial profiles (by percentage) of inmates, it's a whole new take on slavery and the plantation system... one that's now on view from sea to shining sea. And that so many are incarcerated for non-violent offenses, while the murderers and corporate thieves get to play modern pirate games from their jets? Alas, the very meaning of justice has been gutted. The dead fish hung up in its place while the stink rises to high heaven.
MYSTIC:
"While I like the idea of making them work, I would give them a different job. Say....scrubbing the floors of the prison with a toothbrush."
heeeheeeeee. that is a BRILLIANT idea...hehe. no "overtime pay" -- just the overtime.......
Here in Oz, you pretty much cannot get from Canberra to Gosford to visit your 85yo mother without paying money to a corporation that has rights to toll your travel a right previously arrogated by feudal lords.
http://www.users.bigpond.com/pmurray
I-95 is already a toll road in Maine and New Hampshire, and not an inexpensive toll at that. We used to use 95 to go between neighboring towns and such, but not anymore. They've paid for that road 100 times over, but still raise the tolls as often as they can.
Mass's stretch of I-90 (the "Mass Pike") is also a 100-times-overpaid-for toll road. About $6 to drive from Boston to the NY border, currently, though only $3-4 if you get on at 128/I-95 rather than getting on in town.
Global infrastructure spending is expected to reach $35 TRILLION over the next 20 years with anticipated regional breakdowns as follows:
•Asia - $400 billion annually.
•Europe - $205 billion annually.
•North America - $180 billion annually.
•Africa - $10 billion annually.
(Source: http://moneymorning.com/ )
At a staggering 20% of China’s gross domestic product, China’s stimulus package is the model of an aggressive and substantial stimulus package. It boasts a vast infrastructure spending program that would cover 10 areas, including the construction of new railways, as well as projects aimed at environmental protection and technological innovation.
Yes. It does appear that the U.S. will be falling further behind.
according to the latest news I could find :
China has the project of putting online 42 "high-speed rail" routes - completed and in operation BY 2014.. that is only 4 years away.
but THAT year - the USA HOPES to put in operation ONE . its length spans between new york or some easter coast state and pennsylvania or somewhere there.
that in china crisscrosses the entire span of china - north/south, east-west from border to border. -- and is also designed to help create jobs.
I think china already MANDATES domestic produced cars to be at least hybrid or eletric capable as well as , depending on technology as it arrives, even better environmental and energy efficient cars...aided by tax incentives or subsidies. I know that at least 2 years ago - china already STEEPLY raised the taxes on IMPORTS that are "luxury" cars and not energy efficient...in other words:
if you "pollute - you pay".
in which case - the biggest car brands - from germany to japan already began to try to satisfy these requirements for China.
i think much of the world is already aware that China has already openly declared - even officially - that it "INTENDS TO BE THE WORLD"S PREMIER SOLAR AND WIND ENERGY PRODUCER"...
and has already easily surpassed SPAIN which was the former leading country for many years now.
China also has embarked on a huge national project of "SOLARIZING" or "renewable energy-izing" its homes, EVEN in the far-flung, very backward provincial villages...even having found "low-technology" ways of using METHANE from hogs and cattle to run electricity for family farms...subsidized by the government.
NOW -- THAT"s a wise governance. ..whatever else china's big other flaws are.
all this EVEN when China is comparably STILL BEHIND the west in technology for such things..while the most ADVANCED technological nation earth -- the USA - - let's face it -- REFUSES to do so with ITS science (never mind "who" is responsible...the leadership, corporations OR the american "people" with their attachment to their profligate lifestyle) ...because of short-sighted profit, or .....convenience.
it reminds one of the OIL industry decades ago..or the car industry .
"China has the project of putting online 42 'high-speed rail' routes - completed and in operation BY 2014.. that is only 4 years away."
Right now, I'd settle for seeing the Second Avenue Subway in New York up and running. It's been in the works (on and off) since 1929. Latest estimates see one section of the line opening by 2016.
Kids can see how education is valued when their schools are dirty wrecks and the neighboring office buildings are modern and spotless. No wonder they vandalize school property. It has been shown that when kids are moved to a new school, vandalism almost disappears.
Ugly schools point to an ugly society. I wish the Pentagon had to hold bake sales to pay for its lavish facilities abroad and its fancy weapon systems.
"UGLY SCHOOLS POINT TO AN UGLY SOCIETY"...
we can take that as a truism ...but more truthfully if that Society should have NO reason, NO REASON on earth to have such "ugly schools" reflecting an "ugly education system".
to be a society of such global magnitude wealth and have its own kids suffer this or its students suffer through debts in college and never -or hardly become freed to be as fully human beings as they can be because of their "debt" to a profit system of education or one that is ultimately class-oriented and designed to BE so...is a shame.
I recall a film made in africa - about communities where the children walk MILES every morning and afternoon - just to get to their "school" which to THEM is BEAUTIFUL - because they have a teacher who is dedicated to them and loves them ....even if that is the only way their poor country can provide SOME "public" education .....and poor as they are -- with ALL the EXCUSE in the world to have "no education" ....limited as that is , FEW as there are children that can even have THIS chance among their population...the fact that despite their far greater economic problems where education is hardly the FIRST priority compared to hunger and a roof over the head...such a "poor education" still somehow reflects a society, no matter how imperfect and in distress in material ways leading to more societal distress, that is at HEART also
"beautiful".
and to boot -- those children who , outside their school hours, WORK to help their parents as soon as they get home after hours of barefoot travel for miles ...go to their "beautiful school" which is nothing more than the dirt under a big tree. ..and their "walls" are the air and space and the sky .
imagine that.
For years we waited for the change of regime that would return us to the democracy that we so much believed we had. These the Obama years, where we begin to put right the wrongs, regain our humanity and once again look into the mirror and see a smile. It seems now we had better get our feet on the ground and shout to the heavens that we the people have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, that we are sovereign, that we participate in our self governing and that the wealth of our nation and our labor belongs to all of us and that it shall be shared so that each will have enough.
A fresh start is needed. Let’s start today.
Enough is as good as a feast.
Bravo! Well said!
If not us, then who? And if not now, when?
Why do I keep reading ratios where 10 billion buys some 40,000 jobs or similar. It always works out to 100k or 200k to create a job that will only pay 40k for a year or so, and on that 40k the Fed gov't will only get back max 20% in taxes---it makes absolutely no economic sense. All it does is temporarily lower the unemployment rate to under 10% so the administration/Congress can look good for photo-ops.
It's that darn "big government" inefficiency whenever they interfere with the pure forces of "free market" supply and demand. Either that or somebody's carving a big chunk out of the job creation "overhead."
sierra7
How about all the taxpayer money that has been poured into our major multi-national corporations over the decades then they have kicked us all to the curb, abandoned their dirty factory sites to the taxpayer's burden, fled the country....and on, an on, and on....
Study the history of how much money "business" garners from our pockets, schools, universities and outright support, while they demean programs (that we pay into all of our working lives) like social security, unemployment insurance...etc......
With business comes responsibilities....a word business does not understand.
You are confusing the short term goals of economics with the long term needs of a progressive society.
Lastly, if "private investment" cannot provide livelihood for a country that protects the hell out of it....either the public sector does (you and me) or the country succumbs to revolution.
Take your pick.
Jobs do not merely include the payment to the workers. It also includes the material to work with. That costs money.
But if right-wingers could understand real-world economics instead of just being a bunch of posers who pretend to each other that they're 'hard-headed realists' while leftists are mere 'dreamers', they wouldn't stay right wingers very long. All of 'em are like Sam Joe Plumber Wurzelbacher who was going to buy a business on his $40k a year salary while avoiding child support payments.
'leverage private capital' is an interesting group of words in this article. This would be done by a 'national infrastructure bank'. Private capital invests money for expected private gain. Leveraging by banks means loaning out far more money than is deposited in the bank. Does this sound at all familiar? The private capital would expect a substantial return on the investment. How would the substantial return from building a public school come about? Return from building a highway is obvious...toll booths and substantial fees far in excess of the cost of construction. However, this could all work out if the debts from the money which the banks have loaned could be bundled into 'collateralized debt obligations' and sold to investors overseas. Of course when (not if) the debts were defaulted on the overseas investors would be able to foreclose on the collateral, i.e. the schools and highways etc. Let them foreclose. Ha, ha, the collateral would then be sold at a fraction of the original price and the States could then step in and bid low ball prices getting the schools etc. for a pittance. Overseas investors are eager to buy 'collateralized debt obligations' from the USA, are they not?