With Interest Rates Low, Time to Invest

To the Editor:
In the July 17 publication of the Herald, both Michael Tourette and Congressman Frank LoBiondo expressed themselves. They expressed themselves as the usual two peas in a pod… a negative pod. Are these two ever for anything? Of course not; they’re conservatives. The 10 percent Congress is also against everything. To grow as a nation, we must adapt, write new laws and progress. We must build our infrastructure as we always did in the past. With the deadbeat Congress we have, there is no way to survive. The congressman talks about correcting the damage of the 2012 Sandy storm. That’s his job for the district. However, his party and leadership talk austerity and have done little for infrastructure since Reagan and 1980. Here’s what must be done, or we as a country will be finished.
The estimated figure to rebuild our infrastructure is about $2.5 trillion. The Republicans call for austerity. Where were they when we wasted about $2.5 trillion on the Iraq war? To say nothing about Afghanistan. We’ve yet to pay for these wars.
Yet they’ll save us a million here and there by eliminating Head Start and food stamps. The taxpayers will be paying for Haliburton for the next 50 years. Currently, Iraq is returning to where it was originally. A wasteful war. Note: 500 Al-Qaeda prisoners escaped from Abu-Gharib prison recently. Remember that place?
By rebuilding infrastructure here in the U.S., job creation would be enormous.
With current interest rates at a low, now is the time to invest. Yet the Republicans will oppose progress as usual. They do not have the best interest of the country regardless of their “Patriotic” talk. Congress collects $175,000 annually per man or member to vote no on everything. Their leadership is abysmal. They challenge health care, women’s rights, immigration, gun laws and progress. Eventually, they will ruin the country. Should they do this again, it will finish them as a party. Get them out in 2014 and watch our country grow exponentially. It’s sequester, not Obama Care, that’s seriously hurting our country. The public should learn more about serious politics.
In 1980 we had a $1 trillion national debt. Today we have $16 trillion debt. How much along the way was invested in infrastructure? Twenty of those years were Republican administrations and now they blame the teachers? Give me a break.
As a former member of ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers), I’ve got to defend the investing of our national government or at least their attempts. Yes, we’re rebuilding the infrastructure in Iraq and Afghanistan — Why not here? We have 50,000 bridges that are structurally inefficient. Our roads do not compare to those in Europe and China. A prime example of lack of investing is the 2011 cancellation of the NY-NJ tunnel project by Gov. Chris Christie; a total lack of foresight on his part.
In a nuclear power plant there’s uranium fuel ready for fission but kept under critical mass with control rods. When they’re ready to generate energy, control rods are raised so the uranium can mix together, beginning the fission process, which releases heat. That heat in turn boils the water flowing through the reactor which produces steam that turns a turbine and generates electricity. A one-time failure would be catastrophic.
Most of our plants are over 40 years old. This is only one aspect of our infrastructure decay. We must fix and update our bridges, roads, primary and secondary treatment plants, water supply systems, power grid and overall systems.
Finally, for Al Crossen, read the book I recommended.
William Murphy
Cape May