I watch a lot of DIY on television. People buy these beat up old houses for cheap and then invest a bunch of money to fix them up. Inevitably, things go wrong: the plumbing is bad; the wiring is bad; the “open concept” desired requires the purchase of large beams. You often hear homeowners say that they can’t believe all the money they have to spend on fixing up things they can’t even see! They want the bling!
Boy, does that translate into the real world today or what? People do not want to pay more money to fix our roads – and we can see those! What about infrastructure we can’t see? People complain when storms knock out our power, sometimes for days.
We feel sorry for people who lose power, heat, or air conditioning, but what do we do about it? Some pitch in to buy generators; some donate to shelters; most don’t do anything, and there aren’t enough donations to provide help for everyone who needs it. But ask even the generous ones to pay a little more to upgrade the system? Most would say no.
This gets us to the tragic situation in Flint – a situation that could be repeated in almost every older city in Michigan and the country. We all feel horrible about the situation and ask ourselves how could this happen.
Driven by compassion, many people and businesses – some not even in our state – are donating water and other essentials to help those affected. The state and federal governments are also finding dollars in tight budgets to help Flint. As a people, we rise to the occasion and help in emergency situations. However, ask the same people to pay a little more to ensure that we do not get into an emergency situation and you normally get the opposite response.
Just like the homeowners in the DIY shows, we will pay for the bling, but not for the things we can’t see. We will help people once tragedy has occurred, but not to stop the tragedy from happening in the first place. Be prepared to pay for a lot more things you can’t see in the future – like water infrastructure – things that we tend to take for granted, but things that support all of the other things we want.
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