Representative Edward F. Hanes Jr.
There is little doubt that North Carolina faces an infrastructure crisis. Our roads and highways are facing critical needs. Our water and sewer systems require updates and expansions. Our rural regions are still begging for high-speed, broadband internet.
The public policy debate really doesn’t center around the needs. The big question is how do you pay for the upgrades?
The Governor has proposed a reasonable request to fund a $3 billion referendum for road construction, highway maintenance and major renovations for buildings owned by the state. The Republican leadership in both the House and the Senate have rebuffed the Governor’s proposal – basically shelving the idea of borrowing money to expedite these projects.
Some folks in the know have speculated the Legislative leadership isn’t interested in promoting a bond because it will be politically advantageous for the Governor. The President Pro Tem of the Senate has said he prefers to cash-flow the road and building projects with a pay-as-you-approach.
The American Society of Civil Engineers reported three years ago there were more than 2,300 bridges that were structurally deficient in our state; that 11% of our major road network was in ‘poor’ condition, and nearly $16 billion was needed for pending water and sewer projects.
It’s time to have a real debate about how state government can work with our county and local governments to tackle the critical needs we face with infrastructure investments.
If the Legislative leadership wants to push off the Governor’s bond plan that’s their prerogative. It doesn’t diminish the critical needs our state is facing nor should it preclude a legitimate debate about how we are going to pay for our infrastructure investments.
We cannot continue to push the pause button on fixing our roads and helping rural areas get high-speed internet.
Our local and county leaders are waiting for leadership from our State Legislature. The Main Street Democrat message on infrastructure investment is simple: It’s time to get moving! Let’s put together a plan, identify our top priorities, and then get to work getting it done.
Delaying these critical investments is costing us time, money and hurting our economic recovery.
Representative Edward F. Hanes Jr.
North Carolina General Assembly
District 72
PAID FOR AND AUTHORIZED BY THE NC MAIN STREET DEMOCRAT PAC.
You’re right, we desperately need to spend more money on our infrastructure.
That being said, a couple of years ago the General Assembly slashed unemployment benefits more harshly than any other state in the country, plunging tens of thousands of citizens into unnecessary economic hardship. And they did so (supposedly) to get out from under a $2.5 billion Federal debt for UI assistance during the recession. What drove them to that was *not* a financial concern for the state, it was to keep the Feds from requiring private employers to pay what they should have been paying all along, which would have kept us from going so deep into debt in the first place.
And now that the poor have suffered so much to get us out of debt, you’re asking us to support going back even deeper into debt, this time owing money to non-government sources who will exact a percentage for their investment. If you can’t see how hard that is to swallow considering the aforementioned suffering, read it again.
And yes, the reason I brought this up is because there are a handful of Main Street Democrats who assisted the GOP in their punishment of the unemployed, including a couple of its founders. And we owe it to those who suffered (and are still suffering) to not forget.
Dear Rep. Haynes:
While I agree with everything you say and suggest, I also believe that you and I know the real reason why the state’s daunting infrastructural needs will never be addressed nor met under GOP leadership.
The root of the NCGOP’s intransigence on this issue is simply their refusal to believe in governance for “the common good” and in the notion of making critical long-term public investments to benefit the state’s future. They are too wrapped up in cutting taxes in regressive fashion so that their corporate friends can benefit, and in starving government programs so that they can point to them as “failures.”
IMO, the NCGOP prefers to “cash-flow” infrastructural repair and improvements in short-sighted, piecemeal fashion because doing so will not put pressure on them to raise state revenues (i.e., taxes), nor to invest state dollars in “public works” (recall that they always prefer to let the private sector take over more and more government responsibilities). And, let’s face it; their claiming “no new taxes” and the advantages of free enterprise over public programs only helps them to retain votes from their ill-informed rightwing base and to earn them from the gullible in the center.