Starving In The Midst Of Plenty

 The Old Rugged Bridge

Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/la-na-transportation-bill-20140515-story.html

Without quick action by Congress, the U.S. Transportation Department may begin scaling back or halting work on thousands of roads, bridges and other infrastructure projects at the height of the construction season this July, when the nation's Highway Trust Fund is expected to run dry...

"Quick action"? Did you say "quick action"?
The way Congress acts, it makes me think that they have read the biblical quote as a mutually exclusive choice: the quick or the dead, you may have one, but not the other.
They have often chosen the dead and moribund road to the future.

There is so much money and wealth, yet there is so little available to re-build roads, lower the national debt, fund social programs, etc., etc., etc.
Many people seem to believe that projects such as Keystone will do miracles, but they strike me as akin to "9 day wonders", and their effect is soon swamped by the general depression of the state of the society.

The roads around here are incredibly bad after the winter.
We have to change normal routes which went directly to our destinations into maze-like twistings and turning to avoid the pot-hole swamps that infest the area.

Part of the history of the USA is the great history of building roads and connecting markets and getting goods and commerce around the country and around the globe. If we cannot support it, we are criminally stupid, and we will merit to opprobrium of our grandchildren and their offspring.

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