No one seemed to be talking about how to pay for the cost of rebuilding. I'm told that you can spend all the money you want at the federal level and "no one" has to pay for anything! It is a wonderful system we have — indeed.
There are three ways to pay for this type of expenditure. One comes off the table immediately — that would be raising taxes. The only other viable two (if we can call them that) are to either borrow the money (it is what we do best), or, failing that — just print the money! The easiest of all solutions.
Given the lack of leadership across the board and the fact that fiscal conservatives are as rare as hens' teeth these days, I'm guessing they will go for borrowing today what we cannot pay back tomorrow.
I've written plenty about our "fix on failure" mentality to maintaining our infrastructure in the past. Just remember, solutions do have consequences. My only personal hope is to be dead before the piper has to be paid. Defined as: "To pay a monetary debt or experience unfavorable consequences, especially when the payment or consequences are inevitable in spite of attempts to avoid them."
P.S. We will need foreign workers if this funding is appropriated. We don't have enough construction workers now, and the baby boomer bulge is hitting the trades already.
