Americans are known for such cheerful aphorisms as "whistle while you work" and "keep your eyes on the prize, hold on." So, I've got one for you:
"When you hear deficit, think of infrastructure."
That's right, think of all the things the deficit hawks tell you we can't afford.
For example, earlier this year the 21st Century School Fund issued a fact sheet on the dismal state of our public school buildings. The fact sheet reports:
What condition are our public school facilities in?
- School districts have an estimated $271 billion of deferred
building and grounds maintenance in their schools, excluding administrative
facilities, which averages $4,883 per student.
- In a 2010 state survey, 10 states
(CO,DE,GA,HI,IL,KY,LA,ME,MT,NJ) reported needing an average of $4,400 per
student for deferred maintenance.
- Public school facility investment aligns with the wealth of
the community the school is located in. Between 1995-2004 schools in low wealth
zip codes had one third the funding for capital projects as schools in high
wealth zip codes.
What difference does facility condition make to children and
adults?
- Teachers in Chicago and Washington, DC reported missing 4
days annually because of health problems caused by adverse building conditions
(with poor indoor air quality being the biggest problem).
- A national survey of school nurses found over 40% of the
nurses knew children and staff adversely impacted by avoidable indoor pollutants.
- Students from 95 New York City Public Schools attended fewer
days on average in schools with poor facilities and had lower grades in English
Language Arts and Math which could be correlated to lower attendance.
- Schools that implement energy-saving strategies–from
following green building design to using energy-efficient building components
to behavioral change – can reduce energy use by as much as one-third, resulting
in major environmental and cost-savings benefits.
Q. So, will our nation's crumbling schools be promptly fixed if the
deficit hawks prevail?
"Not bloody likely...!!"
So, you say, where's the "whistle while you work"
in any of that? "When you hear deficit, think of
infrastructure." The trick is to realize that infrastructure
underspending is a deficit too.
The costs that we have deferred by refusing to pay for needed infrastructure pile up on top of our
students and communities in one massive unpaid bill. It's a bill that Congress and the
President -- and for that matter, the Bowles Deficit Commission -- have somehow decided not to think about.
So, when someone says they want to whack $3 trillion out of
Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security and other federal spending -- in the
worst, most wrenching recession since the Great Depression -- what we
should say is the following:
Honestly, I think you should consider going to a
therapist. A person who ignores the fundamental needs of his and her
neighbors, when bridges and dams and schools are collapsing all around us, is
not psychologically well.
The truth is, all these histrionics about the debt ceiling
in Washington are a massive distraction from attending to the physical and
human needs of the United States. Of course we should rein in wasteful
spending and fraud and programs that don't work. But don't talk to me
about that when you've just blown trillions on the protracted wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, and the extension of tax cuts for the country's wealthiest
citizens. You want to raise the eligibility age for Medicare to 67 when 55-year
olds are being fired and downsized by the truckload? I advise you to
seek professional help.*
So, when you shift your attention to infrastructure and
unmet human needs, you are thinking about the things that truly
matter -- such as the health, well-being and productivity of students in public schools.
Forget about the deficit. "Cheer yourself
up" by thinking about the decaying and broken infrastructure that can
provide the opportunity and strategic focus to get Americans back to work. Visualize the little kids in urban schools who are wheezing
from asthma because our political leaders fail to act. (Leave no child
behind, eh? But it's OK to warehouse them in a sick building?)
Then, visualize the many positive impacts that would flow
from a national investment program to upgrade and replace crumbling, sick
school buildings. Visualize construction workers going home from work with freshly
cashed paychecks, and stopping off at the supermarket to pick up some
groceries. Visualize cash registers ringing up higher totals, in turn
creating jobs for other unemployed and worthy Americans. Visualize workers with
full-time jobs, paying taxes again, and bringing down the deficit the right way
-- by working our way out of it.
It looks like the world is collapsing around us, because
politicians are implementing the equivalent of "a public capital
strike," where they refuse to invest in the future of our country.
In that bleak landscape, the Drive for Decent Work urges you
to protect your own mental health by engaging in wild, crazy, upside-down
thinking. Forget about the deficit. When you hear deficit, think of
infrastructure. Whistle while you work.
* In an article in
the Nation, Kurt Vonnegut once pointed out that
military spending is the worst addiction of them all, and that a 12-step program may be needed to wean addicts off their destructive habit. We may need a similar recovery program for deficit hawks, who are prone to destructive binges, and rob innocent bystanders more aggressively then any heroin or cocaine addict.
