Please Pardon Our Mess

And America puts up a "closed for the duration" sign:

In effect, a large part of our political class is showing its priorities: given the choice between asking the richest 2 percent or so of Americans to go back to paying the tax rates they paid during the Clinton-era boom, or allowing the nation’s foundations to crumble — literally in the case of roads, figuratively in the case of education — they’re choosing the latter.

It’s a disastrous choice in both the short run and the long run.

In the short run, those state and local cutbacks are a major drag on the economy, perpetuating devastatingly high unemployment.

It’s crucial to keep state and local government in mind when you hear people ranting about runaway government spending under President Obama. Yes, the federal government is spending more, although not as much as you might think. But state and local governments are cutting back. And if you add them together, it turns out that the only big spending increases have been in safety-net programs like unemployment insurance, which have soared in cost thanks to the severity of the slump.

That is, for all the talk of a failed stimulus, if you look at government spending as a whole you see hardly any stimulus at all. And with federal spending now trailing off, while big state and local cutbacks continue, we’re going into reverse.

I'd add, also, that we wasted stimulus money on crap like $237 billion in individual tax cuts and $51 billion in tax cuts for businesses. Tax cuts haven't wowed me as a job creator or an economic stimulator, but we apparently needed to appease the free market fairies to overcome a Republican fillibuster. Whatever.

No One Could Have Anticipated This

Oh, wait. Yeah, we probably could:

US Water Pipelines Are Breaking

The Environmental Protection Agency says utilities will need to invest more than $277 billion over the next two decades on repairs and improvements to drinking water systems. Water industry engineers put the figure drastically higher, at about $480 billion.

Water utilities, largely managed by city governments, have never faced improvements of this magnitude before. And customers will have to bear the majority of the cost through rate increases, according to the American Water Works Association, an industry group.

Engineers say this is a crucial era for the nation's water systems, especially in older cities like New York, where some pipes and tunnels were built in the 1800s and are now nearing the end of their life expectancies.

''Our generation hasn't experienced anything like this. We weren't around when the infrastructure was being built,'' said Greg Kail, spokesman for the water industry group. ''We didn't pay for the pipes to be put in the ground, but we sure benefited from the improvements to public health that came from it.''

This one’s a no-brainer. Back in 2006 it was estimated the Iraq War cost us $2 billion a week. So, $480 billion is, what, 4 1/2 years in Iraq? And we’ve been there five years?

And what’s the bigger threat: no clean water at home, or some mythic WMD that never even existed?

(h/t, Atrios)

[UPDATE}:

If you agree we should invest in America, not in Iraq, there's a petition going around.

Speaking Of Infrastructure

Hearts and minds, people. Hearts and minds:

Iraqi Power Grid Nearing Collapse
By STEVEN R. HURST
BAGHDAD -- Iraq's power grid is on the brink of collapse because of insurgent sabotage, rising demand, fuel shortages and provinces that are unplugging local power stations from the national grid, officials said Saturday.

Electricity Ministry spokesman Aziz al-Shimari said power generation nationally is only meeting half the demand, and there had been four nationwide blackouts over the past two days. The shortages across the country are the worst since the summer of 2003, shortly after the U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, he said.

Power supplies in Baghdad have been sporadic all summer and now are down to just a few hours a day, if that. The water supply in the capital has also been severely curtailed by power blackouts and cuts that have affected pumping and filtration stations.

Karbala province south of Baghdad has been without power for three days, causing water mains to go dry in the provincial capital, the Shiite holy city of Karbala.
. . . .
The power problems are only adding to the misery of Iraqis, already suffering from the effects of more than four years of war and sectarian violence. Outages make life almost unbearable in the summer months, when average daily temperatures reach between 110 and 120 degrees.

Of course, the electrical grid was in poor shape when American troops arrived in 2003. Years of sanctions against Saddam Hussein’s regime saw to that -- and the U.S. had imposed these sanctions since 1990. Indeed, under this economic strangulation, much of Iraq's infrastructure fell apart.

Perhaps one reason American troops weren’t met with chocolates and roses in 2003 is because many Iraqis blame us for their humanitarian crisis that started long before the first "shock and awe" bombs fell. Whether you agree with them or not isn't the point. The point is that we have no moral standing in the Middle East as a result of these kinds of actions, and waging war in Iraq has only made the situation worse.

This is one reason why I say there will be no American-brokered “democracy” in Iraq and why the Bush plan for a “win” won’t happen, not in September, not ever. We haven’t won the hearts and minds. They don't trust us, they don't want what we're pitching. Only an organization that doesn't bear America's fingerprint can broker peace in Iraq.