When we hear the word “infrastructure,” most of us think of highways, bridges, airports, water mains….the physical apparatus built and paid for with tax dollars. And that’s accurate–so far as it goes. But most of us fail to recognize both the extent of the “public goods” we support and how essential they are to private enterprise.
In a recent issue of PA Times, the publication of the American Society for Public Administration (yes, I am a nerd), a contributor forcefully made the point that citizens are generally uninformed about the public goods they enjoy, and especially oblivious about how dependent they are on those goods. This expansive infrastructure is the “ecosystem” that supports commerce and business activity as well as our quality of life.
Elements of that ecosystem include clean air, clean public water supplies, street lights, food and drug safety, 911 services, police and fire protection, sewers and wastewater treatment facilities, interstate highways, education, national defense, a currency system, weather forecasting, disaster relief, registration systems for property, births and deaths, libraries, basic research and development, jogging trails, public parks, insurance of bank deposits, air traffic control, airports….the list goes on and on.
There is another “infrastructure” that makes civilization possible–the intellectual contributions of those who have gone before us. Today’s science and technology build on the discoveries of scientists long dead. We learn (okay, mostly we fail to learn) from the histories that have been recorded. We learn from research into the nature of our environments, both physical and social, and into experiments that have succeeded and failed. Etc.
I suppose it’s human to minimize the immense debt we owe to those who have provided the assets upon which even the most “self-made” build. But candidly, I find the preening “look at what I did all by myself” folks pretty insufferable.
And I find those who are unwilling to support that infrastructure, unwilling to “pay their dues,” immoral.
YES. And lets allow those who benefit directly from the infrastructure in Indianapolis help to pay for it. (They talk a lot about people paying their own way don’t they?) Those “R” folks who skip out of town before sundown to their superior school system in the surrounding towns. They need to help pay for the Police,Fire, Water, Sewer and on and on in Indy as they spend 1/3 of their day here. Fair is fair people. Commuter Tax Time. Even the playing field just a bit.
We should stop providing tax breaks for businesses to come to the city (any city for that matter) as tax dollars pay for those infrastructure needs.
For example: The city of Marana AZ was complaining that the PGA tour that comes to town every February is burying the city in debt for services like police protection and traffic control when they come to town. They lose money every year on it (.5 million) because they didn’t negotiate the fees to cover the costs that the city incurs. It reminded me of the Super Bowl deal that the NFL pulled on the city of Indy. Another corporate welfare programs that hurts the local economy and these city planners need to do the math before negotiating these events. As citizens of these towns, we need to make our voice heard that servicing the rich and their play time doesn’t mean they escape paying their fair share.
Speaking of public parks, I hope everyone noticed that we are 47th in the nation. That followed by a couple of weeks our equally lowly health care rankings, BUT, as our legislators remind us incessantly, ” We are the fiscal envy of the nation”.
The study you cite is flawed beyond repair…it calls for new parks in the hinterlands of Franklin Township, and in the middle of the Tech High School campus. The study has one goal – to promote big government.
We’d have more money for truly essential infrastructure if we weren’t paying the mortgage on a $700 million football stadium.