Leon Satterfield: Should war or infrastructure be our priority?

Leon Satterfield: Should war or infrastructure be our priority?
Monday, Aug 13, 2007 - 12:07:35 am CDT


OK, I admit it. The next time I drive far enough east of Lincoln that I have to cross a bridge over the Missouri River I’ll be having a severe case of the fantods.

I suspect that, as of the Aug. 1 collapse of the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi in Minneapolis, a whole lot of Americans share my bridge phobia.

Despite President Bush’s efforts to assure Minneapolis citizens that everything’s going to be all right, that “we want to get this bridge rebuilt as quick as possible,” a lot of cynics are rolling their eyes and saying “Yeah, right.”

Especially if they live in New Orleans. You remember New Orleans, the city that was devastated in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina. According to an Associated Press story by Becky Bohrer last week, President Bush, speaking in the New Orleans French Quarter shortly after the hurricane, promised that his federal government disaster relief folks would stay around “as long as it takes to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives.”

You’ve probably seen on television the devastation that still remains in New Orleans nearly two years later. Bohrer interviewed Melanie Thompson, who has been living with her family of five in “a cramped trailer and awaiting aid to rebuild” her house that had been flooded out.

Bohrer wrote that Melanie’s “hope and faith in government” have faded. She sympathizes with Minneapolis folks and says “I just hope to God” that the government agencies will “come to their rescue a lot quicker than they did to ours.”


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uhc comment: There's interesting blog comments following the article. My fave:

Lloyd wrote on August 14, 2007 1:26 pm:

" Should war or infrastructure be our priority? Well war because the money goes to multinational companies headquartered in tax-free Dubai and other emirates. Infrastructure funds only go to local U.S. concrete and steel companies. "