Infrastructure

The cost of building our infrastructure needs to shift to the States, who should further shift most of the cost to counties and cities.

The bulk of our infrastructure is local.  These are roads, bridges, highways, sanitary sewer and water treatment facilities.  It also includes airports, ports and harbors and other entities tied to the local economy.

Cities and counties should be absolutely responsible for non-critical items like parks, greenspace, bike lanes, multi-use paths and other recreational infrastructure.

All expenses for public transit and commuter trains should be paid by cities, counties and riders and should operate on a break-even basis.

States may retain responsibility for state roads and highways, but should not be funding schools and healthcare. These are also tied to the local economy and should be funded by counties and cities.

States need to begin to clear their plate to absorb the functions that had been unconstitutionally assumed by the federal government and are better handled by the “States and the People”, or the industries.

States should be working on water availability and building reservoirs and pipelines to mitigate droughts and flooding. States should also be working on assuming responsibility for “national parks” and all federal lands within their state, especially those that are prone to forest fires and should release land for harvesting, ranching and agriculture. Their goal should be to martial resources to prevent forest fires and overwhelm forest fires when they occur.

States spend $billions on maintaining State Colleges and should stop spending and start demanding that these colleges change to produce graduates that can actually be employed to function in a free market economy.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader