Who Built It?

Reading about the end of the New Jersey-New York Tunnel project thanks to Chris Christie. When I first heard about the end of this project I didn´t like it one bit. Rail is necessary for future growth, especially in areas like NY and NJ where there is not necessarily any extra capacity for new highways. So why cancel this project that provided jobs? Christie was on about it exceeding costs, but while that is certainly the case (most infrastructure projects carry hidden costs and underestimates), it doesn´t really tell the whole story. More fundamentally its about a world view and a lot of political posturing. Republican voters want this kind of savings and it is one of the reasons that a man like Christie was elected in the first place. However its possible that the money can´t simply be moved to other projects anyway: they were for this project solely.

I am reading an article about America´s economical woes on Spiegel at the moment. Its in German and deals with the issues of today. It notes the anti-tax, anti-big government feeling that the Tea Party is screaming (echoed by the Tea Party/Republican leadership). In the end it uses the cancelling of the bridge as a metaphor for the death of the American Dream in a way. The country is unable to realize its dreams of being a top nation among nations any longer. Considering that the Republican plans got us to what we have today, how then are the further realization of their dreams going to help us any? They don´t have the answer except by using the familiar Ayn Rand idea that we need to tell Government to get out of the way. So I start to wonder than just who it was who built the infrastructure in America? Who built the highways, the ports, the hoover dam, and all that good stuff? Well it wasn´t private companies that is for sure. At this point I am really curious as to whether or not the Tea Party is really going to be happy with what they are about to get? We´ll leave the social issues for another posting.

Link to the Spiegel article

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