The sad thing is, no matter what the outcome of the current cock fight in Washington (take that any way you want it works) we are headed into a period of austerity. A while back I talked about some of the protests in Great Britain over some of the social welfare cuts (they were protesting cuts to higher education programs) I had pointed to the protests and some of the violence that came of them as an example of what austerity really looks like; people pleading, and sometimes acting out trying to get their government to work for them. While it is a part of it, it doesn't really capture what is going to happen to this country at least not like this:
This is a photo from the Bronx, my borough, from last week. In case you haven't heard a watermain burst last week In the middle of the Bronx and covered the neighborhood with millions of gallons of water. Obviously it closed shops and cause tons of water damage to cars, but it also knocked out to gas lines that took days to repair. The pipe burst because it was over one hundred years old. You know whoever came up with the saying if it ain't broke don't fix it has never dealt with anything over 60 years old. What people need to realize is that this is not the exception this is the norm. I work for the municipal agency in charge of that watermain and I can tell you, we have situations like that throughout the city just waiting to cause chaos and destruction if we just breathe on them wrong. Yes I'm being a bit hyperbolic, but in all honesty there have been reports that put the city at 50 years behind in its maintenance on infrastructure and I gotta tell you that sounds about right. Now there are multiple reasons for this but a big part of it has been we have let infrastructure languish for decades (since Reagan) and it has created these ticking time bombs throughout America that are just waiting to go off. The problem is all of these time bombs are invisible to everyone until they go off but once they do they seem painfully obvious like our friend the watermain. Their invisibility is a two pronged problem, for one thing politicians don't like to fund things they can't see, and secondly when it does fail it is further “proof” of the incompetence in government work, when it isn’t the work that is incompetent but the politics.
The saddest thing is that this is the ultimate purpose of government. It is literally the reason why governments exist. Medicare, Social security, these programs are sacred cows in our society, and everyone loves them but what separates us from a third world country is stable sustainable infrastructure. It’s what makes everything else in society possible, and that is not hyperbole. The GOP loves to talk about how our spending and taxing is creating uncertainty in the markets, I wonder how the markets will react when bridges all over the country start collapsing and municipalities can’t guarantee stable water, or electric supplies.
Don’t get me wrong I totally understand that their is a serious fiscal spending issue we have. Our Debt level is equal to our yearly GDP, which is high and needs to come down, but not in two years, or even ten years. Nor does the debt need to be eliminated, if we reduced it to 70 or even 80% of our GDP we could reasonably be considered economically stable. If you consider student loans and mortgages most Americans would be ecstatic to have a debt level equal to just their yearly income. Read any reputable economist and they will tell you the current hysteria over US debt levels is just that, and the real problem America is facing is one of employment.
At this point I’m personally disgusted with the outcome of this manufactured crisis. I blame the President for caving to political pressures back in December during the threat of governmental shutdown. I blame the craven GOP using the threat of blowing up the global economy to eviscerate anything that has a chance of maintaining at least the illusion of class mobility, and I blame the feckless Democrats who are so fearful of anyone questioning their patriotism they cave every time we attempt to do something rationale about the military industrial complex. Logically this whole episode brings me back to Warren Ellis’ phenomenal graphic novel Transmetropolitan and a quote he used from H.L. Mencken, I leave you with that today:
"The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest insane and intolerable and so if he is romantic he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are."
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