Dam It!

As predicted by many, Rick Perry has quickly shot toward the top of the polls in the competition for the Republican nomination for the Presidency.

Rick Perry is a choice for voters who admire some of Michele Bachmann's traits, but want someone with executive experience. Maybe even an economic record to run on.

Or, he is for those who admire some of Bachmann's traits, but are reluctant to vote for a woman.

You take your pick.
I'm not even trying to be funny.

Switching gears, I saw in the news the other day that there is a proposed dam to be built in Pakistan, set to cost upwards of $12 billion dollars.

Meanwhile, the border with Mexico remains as porous as Swiss cheese.
Our bridges are collapsing and our roads are crumbling due to neglect.
Tunnels are not up to code.
It's actually a public safety issue.

While I agree that the pie really needs to shrink overall, it would be great if infrastructure spending took up a little more of that shrinking pie. Let's also make it abundantly clear that you don't need a stimulus to allocate funds for infrastructure.

One thing that irks many Americans is when we spend money elsewhere when we could really use it here at home. Closing down hospitals and schools in the US and building them in Afghanistan. Stationing large numbers of troops in Europe, giving many European governments the ability to skimp on their defense budgets while they provide cradle-to-grave entitlements and lavish pensions for their citizens that we could never afford for ourselves, even if we were ever so inclined.

My main idea?
Take things away from other people before you do so to Americans.

Going back to that proposed Pakistani dam project, that money being spent right there would almost be enough to build a high-tech border barrier with Mexico.

It almost makes you feel like politicians have been playing politics with seriously attempting to close down illegal immigration and drug smuggling. After glancing here, you might be kind of irked that nothing has been done about the problem yet.
It's relatively inexpensive. It's a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of things.

The problem, of course, is politics.
Some on one side want cheap labor, and some on the other side pander for votes.
Any other hypotheses on why nothing has truly been done yet?

If 100 people running around in caves in Afghanistan are a threat to national security, why isn't a porous 2,000-mile border with Mexico also a threat to national security?

We don't take it seriously enough.

Remember last year during the oil spill when the frustrated President said "Plug the damn leak!"?

That's how many Americans feel about the border situation.

On a final aside, I'm interested in hearing the President's speech on jobs this coming Thursday.

Maybe he's realized that the only way he is going to get any additional revenues is through comprehensive tax reform, and I hope he chooses to take advantage of that opportunity for bipartisan compromise to enact pro-growth policies that would benefit the country as a whole.

Something else to note: many Right-leaning Independents and Republicans are stimulus-ed out. People in general have little faith in their governments to do anything right. Look at the first stimulus. Not even 10% of that money went into roads and bridges. We were once bit, but we're twice shy.
What am I saying?

The "S"-word just might be a non-starter, especially with a debt-to-GDP ratio eclipsing 100%.
It just might be.

And it's not our fault that it's gotten to that point.