Put 15 Million Back to Work Fixing $2.2 Trillion in Infrastructure: the Works Progress Administratio

http://www.truth-out.org/put-15-million-back-work/1311271379


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Why not a WPA-II? We do have that civilian army of 15,000,000 unemployed, which could tackle the $2.2 trillion dollars of vital work needed by 2014 on our ramshackle infrastructure system.

Unlike the untold billions spent today - almost unquestioningly - on foreign wars and occupations and economic aid and infrastructure, the WPA's annual $2 billion budget was scrutinized by bitter enemies in Congress for every nickel it squeezed from the Treasury and for any whiff of abuse.<3> But today, 72 percent of Americans are demanding the US get out of Afghanistan altogether and 84 percent oppose getting further into the conflict in Libya. The US Conference of Mayors voted on June 20 to stop funding wars and "bring war dollars home" to meet crucial domestic needs such as infrastructure.<4> If the administration and Congress wants to win in 2012 - and obey these anti-war, anti-empire-building commands - charity could finally begin at home.

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The latest report from the nation's premier engineering experts, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), estimated that such Congressional disinterest has caused damaging consequences so extensive that $2.2 trillion will be required by 2014 just to meet current demands. That estimate was prior to the June tornado that tore up an estimated $75 million worth of roads, bridges and public structures in Joplin, Missouri<9> and the rampaging Mississippi and Missouri rivers wracking up $4 billion to $9 billion in repair work.<10> Communities affected by Katrina and the BP oil catastrophes still await billions for infrastructure work - and this year's hurricane season has just started.

-long snip detailing how THIS CAN BE DONE-
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speaking of pipes:

Bison Pipeline explosion shouldn't halt natural gas flow

http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wpr/news.newsmain/article/0/0/1831311/WPR..News./Bison.Pipeline.explosion.shouldn%27t.halt.natural.gas.flow

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The company cannot yet predict when the 600 million dollar pipeline might resume operations. The explosion occurred Wednesday evening, about 20 miles west of Gillette. No one was injured.
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Over 100,000 gallons of manure flow into creek
Officials say a broken pipe is to blame

http://thegazette.com/2011/07/21/over-100000-gallons-of-manure-flow-from-dairy-operation-into-coon-creek/

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When discovered at 7 a.m. Thursday, Cedar Valley Farms shut off the pump and built sand dams around the spill site. The spill has been contained to Coon Creek in Benton and Iowa counties.

Miller said the DNR has two pumps in the river, which are transporting the manure to a hayfield, where it will be applied on the land. She says the agency hopes to remove all of the manure within a few days.

The spill killed an unknown number of fish, but Miller said she does not expect it to do much long-term damage to the creek’s ecosystem.

“Nature’s got a wonderful way of fixing itself,” she said.

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somebody smack her mouth

the list of broken, rusted, leaking, exploded pipes goes on and one

promises in 2008.

Oh, and GITMO.

People talk about Keynesian economics with a silly example of hiring one guy to dig a hole and another one to fill it. And they may pretend that Keynesian economists just want "make work" just to spend spend spend to revive the economy like we have successfully done before. (Edited to add-- that was not Make Work either-- we got great projects out of that and infrastructure that was marvelous and is now crumbling around us, needing maintenance and upgrading.)

But the public knows-- we have levies that need rebuilding, we have bridges that have collapsed-- there are thousands of infrastructure projects urgently needed after a Republican administration in which the leadership hated the idea of creating even one more government job.

They hate "Good Government" and we Democrats used to support it. We were proud to help build and maintain an excellent infrastructure. We are ready willing and able to do it again.

We voted for a Democratic president in 2008 because we knew we needed to do a lot of work to restore our country after it had been trashed by the Government Hating Party.

I keep waiting for the Grand Chess Game to turn so that we can get on with the work that millions of workers are standing by ready to do.

And millions of us know that people working to repair local bridges and electrical systems and expand mass transit will be spending their money locally, which will revive our economies.

When will our Democratic leadership seize that mantle-- Demand Side Economics works. Supply Side crashed and cost us millions of jobs.