5.08.2007
Newsclipping of the Day :: Our Public Infrastructure for Sale
This short news piece in today's TomPaine.com notices a trend for the public infrastructure of the good ol US of A to be sold off to the highest fat cat bidders. Really unbelievable. When the Republicans get through, we'll not have any public anything left. Everything will be owned, operated, and controlled by the corporatocracy, which is in turn owned by the richest of the richie riches, who will in turn be accountable to no one. Least of all congress and We the People.
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When Pizzigati says in his opening that fifty years ago tax dollars went to "build and maintain roads and bridges, sewers and schools, airports and harbors—what economists call our "public infrastructure"" he's referring to the Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways and came about after legislation in 1956. "[The highway system] had been lobbied for by major U.S. automobile manufacturers and championed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower- who was influenced by both his experiences as a young soldier crossing the country in 1919 following the route of the Lincoln Highway and his appreciation of the German autobahn network - as a necessary component of a national defense system."
Such public works are rarely as altruistic in nature as they seem.
Prior to the 50s most major public works projects were the direct result of efforts to get the population back to work after the Great Depression which brought us the horrendous New Deal.
In the late forties, my Dad notes, public transit and trolley systems all over the country were "privatized," which enabled the new owners to trash them at lightning speed, hastening on our current period of little travel option. What the people put their money into for the collective good ought not be given over to corporate interests for profit. Republicans have been trying to do this for years with public education, and we all know what that looks like now, after years of battle.
My Dad also would now be much less stable financially, without social security, brought to us by the New Deal. I'd much rather our taxes go into collectives for caring for one another and social safety nets, rather than war, militarization, and manufacture of weapons for the world (bout the only thing we still produce here).
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