Drowning America in a Bathtub: Wisconsin Edition

Mere days after I discussed the breaking of a levee in Iowa being another example of deliberate Republican neglect of our national infrastructure (the same kind of neglect that led to the flooding of New Orleans after Katrina), Wisconsin gets hit by the same kind of neglect. An embankment holding back a man-made lake in Wisconsin has broken, flooding yet another Midwest town: (from Salon.com)

The swollen Kickapoo River engulfed nearly the entire town Monday morning, forcing about 150 people to evacuate. By evening, the village was a grid of canals with cars submerged up to their windows and parking lots looking like lakes, just as it was in August...

An engineer assessment team from the Wisconsin National Guard was headed to Lake Delton on Tuesday to determine what would be needed to begin repairs on an embankment along the man-made lake that gave way, releasing a powerful current.

The 267-acre lake emptied into the nearby Wisconsin River on Monday, washing out part of a highway, sweeping away three homes and tearing apart two others...

Lake Delton, a key part of the Wisconsin Dells tourism area, was nearly dry by Monday afternoon. The 20 resorts that line the lake already are reporting cancellations by people who had planned summer vacations in the area...

"I can't believe this is happening again," said Liz Klekamp, 23, who said she grabbed her cat and fled Monday morning when water poured into her house. "It's really, truly sad."

Neglected evees breaking in New Orleans, Iowa and Wisconin. Bridges collapsing in Minnesota. These events were predicted and expected, and the Republican government ignored the warnings over and over again. The result are homes destroyed, lives lost, and a more expensive job of rebuilding from scratch when proper maintenance would have been the intelligent strategy. Why are the Republicans neglecting America's infrastructure? Is it incompentence? Is it because they are too busy throwing money away in the Iraq quagmire? No...it is deliberate. It is part of a policy outlined by Grover Norquist and embraced by most Republicans from Bush to Gingrich to McCain:

"Cutting the government in half in one generation is both an ambitious and reasonable goal," Norquist stated in May 2000. "If we work hard we will accomplish this and more by 2025. Then the conservative movement can set a new goal. I have a recommendation: To cut government in half again by 2050"

The direct result of this policy can be seen in the broken levees in New Oreleans, Iowa and Wisconsin, the collapsed bridges in Minnesota. Republicans are destroying America's infrastructure, leading to loss of homes and life.

It is made worse by the fact that the National Guard uints from most of these locations are under manned and unable to cope with these domestic disasters because too many of our National Guardsmen have been sent to Iraq. They are serving in Iraq when we need them here! This has been the case in Montana when it faces wildfires and Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Indiana and Wisconsin when faced with floods.

How many states will feel the impact of Republican neglect?

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