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Comment by pcbro141 | Hacker News Reader

Why did the US let its infrastructure get to such a bad state? And why are there so many dilapidated neighborhoods and literally crumbling schools?

The US is filthy rich, couldn't they have fixed these things decades ago? Just spend hundreds of billions investing in neighborhoods that have historically been intentionally left to rot?

Is it just disdain for the people who live in the crumbling areas? Serious question.

I see a lot of people lately say 'progressive woke politics' is the reason the US is declining with poor infrastructure, lack of universal healthcare, etc, but aren't progressives generally in favor of universal healthcare and improving infrastructure and other spending to improve quality of life?

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Attempt of a serious answer: it seems like it's really Republican (party) ideology that government should be small enough to be able to be drowned in a bathtub, and any amount of money for the people is deemed sinful. Never mind that it makes sense to build good roads, fast trains, and even good schools to educate people.

Seems like the GOP has a "If we do x, that will prove our propaganda all this time has been wrong, and it's political suicide" problem. As an opposite example, they quickly agreed to Covid bailouts last year because blocking that money would've been an even faster way to commit political suicide.

Even Blue States have deficient infrastructure and lackluster public education. There are plenty of Blue States with Democrat super-majorities in state legislatures where the GOP can safely be ignored. Yet, the problems persist.

> ...government should be small enough to be able to be drowned in a bathtub...

The key piece you're missing is that this is the case for national government, because the rest should be managed at, ideally, the local government level where citizens are able to self-govern, such as on city council meetings. That power should move up the organizational structure only as far as it needs to (for instance, you cannot build interstate highways at the city level).

In a country the size of the US, consolidating political power at the national level turns politics into the spectator sport it's become.

Because in America the poor are merely temporarily embarrassed millionaires, millionaires-to-be, etc. It’s less disdain than sheer ignorance.

Globalization combined with a strong dollar(due to our reserve currency status, which gives us power over other countries but at a cost) led to the export of millions upon millions of manufacturing jobs and businesses, causing a decline in manufacturing, mostly in rural areas.

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