Last week in Los Angeles, a 100-year old water pipe broke,
and spilled more than 20 million gallons of water. That’s a day’s worth of
water for about 100,000 people. According to a story at Grist.org, due to our
aging water infrastructure, ancient pipes leak 7 billion gallons of treated
drinking water every day. Most of our water infrastructure was put into place
during the early part of the 20th century. It’s now languishing in
disrepair because we have other national and state spending priorities. We
aren’t willing to invest in our country, because it would mean spending less on
offense, and it would mean creating jobs, and that can’t happen while the Black
Guy is in the White House. All that dripping water is something to chew on as
we await the coming water wars.
It is an election year, and around New Hampshire,
politicians are gearing up for the primary on September 9. The signs are coming
out, and so are the usual talking points. “Cut spending!” “No New Taxes!”
That’s been the GOP mantra since I moved to NH thirty years ago. It’s been
successful because it is easily absorbed and repeated by low information/low
intellect voters. As a plan for running a state, it has not been successful –
any more than it would be a successful business plan. A business that doesn’t
invest in itself will eventually go under. We’re seeing what becomes of a state
that doesn’t invest in itself – all the states around us are bouncing back from
the meltdown of the economy in 2008. Our neighbor states invested in education
and infrastructure. They began planning for the future. NH remains obstinately
stuck in the past.
According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, over
half of NH’s roads are in poor or mediocre condition. NH reports the need to
invest $847 million in drinking water infrastructure over the next 20 years. We
need to invest $1.2 billion in wastewater infrastructure over the next 20
years. We all know that there are hundreds of red listed bridges that need
fixing, and that our state park system has unmet needs of about $100 million because
we don’t fund the park system properly.
With all of that in mind, I looked at the websites of our
top gubernatorial candidates. Andrew Hemingway wants to offer tax cut
incentives to bring new businesses here. He wants to create a business friendly
atmosphere, which in Hemingway speak means “a regulatory and tax structure that
is inviting to small and large businesses.” Nowhere in the “Solutions First”
section of his website is infrastructure even mentioned. We’ve heard all of
this before.
Walter Havenstein, the Maryland resident who wants to be our
governor, has a snappy graphic and a 3-part plan on his website. It seems that
our problem is business taxes and high electric costs. Havenstein blames the
high electric costs on REGGI. Perhaps it is unfair to expect a recent emigre to
be familiar with what the Seabrook nuclear plant did to our energy costs, and
how PSNH has managed itself over the years. He also adds the usual mantra of no
income/no sales tax. No unions. Passing right to work will send a strong
message to the whole country that we are open for business! We need qualified
employees! The university system better shape up! We need to eliminate
regulations and fees! And so on.
This is all in his plan for The Economic Transformation of
NH. If it sounds curiously
familiar, it’s because it’s the same plan we’ve heard from every GOP candidate
for the last 30 years. The word infrastructure is never mentioned in
Havenstein’s 3 point plan. He does, however, pat himself on the back for his
career at BAE Systems, a company that relies entirely on government contracts.
Walt may be a stranger to NH, but he’s no stranger to feeding from the public
trough.
Havenstein and Hemingway have both taken the Americans for Prosperity pledge.
The Koch funded AFP is desperate to ensure that NH residents don’t have health
insurance or roads and bridges. The more pledges a candidate signs, the less
creativity or actual thought is required of them.
Governor Hassan acknowledges the need for modern, safe,
transportation infrastructure on her campaign website, and touts her
accomplishments in investing in business-backed plans for investing in road and
bridge projects. She’s the only candidate who uses the word infrastructure on
her campaign website.
None of the candidates mentioned telecommunications
infrastructure at all. The idea that we can somehow continue to struggle to
move into the 21st century without dramatically improved
telecommunications infrastructure is befuddling.
A great deal of high volume whining goes on about the
transportation fund. Many people seem to think that somewhere in the highway
budget is buried treasure that’s just waiting to be properly spent. The
Bartlett Center for Kochenomics insists that it’s the carve outs from the
highway fund that are the problem. It is true that money from the highway fund
goes to the Dept. of Safety, and sometimes to other departments. The trickle
downers are aghast upon their fainting couches at the very thought! What they
don’t ever acknowledge is this: If NH doesn’t raise enough revenue to run the
state properly, then departments will continue to rob Peter to pay Paul. That’s
how the NH budget has worked for as long as we can all remember.
Infrastructure investment isn’t a sexy subject. It does not
inflame the passions of voters. Addressing NH’s infrastructure needs won’t be
cheap. The longer we put it off, the more costly it becomes, and we’ve been
putting it off for decades, because NO TAXES/CUT SPENDING. Guns get people
wound up. Infrastructure bores people. Roads, bridges, and drinking water are
all essential to our state’s economic future, and all we’re getting from our
candidates are the same old non-solutions from the last 3 decades. Its no
wonder the future looks bleak – we can’t seem to find candidates who have any
interest in it.
© 2014 sbruce
Published in the August 8 edition of the Conway Daily Sun Newspaper.
