- Government in the United States and those elected officials who serve in our Government must first protect the health, safety, and welfare of all citizens. As we all learned in freshman Civics class, the preamble to the Constitution provides "We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
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As we survey the landscape of our great Nation, perhaps today's elected officials, at all levels, need to be reminded that their primary responsibility is to provide for the health, safety, and welfare of all Americans. I am truly dismayed as our elected officials in Washington and in Harrisburg bicker over nonsense while America's infrastructure deteriorates at an alarming rate. Our roads, bridges, water lines, sewage lines, gas and electric transmission lines are antiquated and have created for all of us extremely dangerous conditions. Tragic events have provided ample warning to those that were elected to keep us safe. In 2007, the I-35W bridge collapsed in Minneapolis killing 13 and injuring 145 people. The repair cost was estimated at 234 million dollars. There have been other tragic events; bridge collapses, gas line explosions, again providing fair warning yet our Government does nothing. The American Society of Civil Engineers has given the United States infrastructure a D+ rating. - America, once a world leader in terms of infrastructure, development, and maintenance is now ranked 16th in the world. The federal government continues to spend less and less on infrastructure repair, falling to a 20 year low of 1.5% of gross domestic spending compared to China's 7% and India's 5%.
- Our government must do better. Will it take some horrific catastrophe to force our elected officials to do what is right and necessary and not what they perceive will get them "reelected"? We as Americans cannot wait. I would respectfully suggest that everyone call every elected official starting with our Senators and moving down the line to local officials urging them to take action now to repair our infrastructure before it's too late. Our elected officials, particularly at the federal level, seem to have forgotten their solemn duty and obligation to those that elected them. Let us remind them before it's too late.
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