“Although many small water systems are run well, it's often the case that they lack resources to monitor and update infrastructure in a timely fashion or manage the water's chemistry carefully. In theory, larger city water systems adjust their water's chemistry continuously to prevent health risks, but, as we've learned from Flint, this is not always the case.”
So perhaps rather than a New Deal digging up of millions of miles of piping, we could raise awareness and compliance with standards proven to work? That’s seems wildly less wasteful.
Iirc, once the solder is exposed to the wrong conditions the damage is done. It’s a mechanical process after that point. But even if I’m wrong about that one, simple awareness isn’t enough and municipalities lack funding to properly monitor and treat their water supplies. Hence the need for a redress of the social contract at the national level.
So “we can’t afford spend $Y million per year on this problem so we instead need to spend $500Y million on a project to replace all the pipes”? That doesn’t sound sensible to this taxpayer.
Your taxes already have nothing to do with government spending. Their affect is to keep you from doing other things with your money. At best, taxes disincentivize bad actions and reward good through decreases/rebates. There’s the obvious tax incentive for marriage, for instance - not considering whether that’s a good or bad thing.
“Although many small water systems are run well, it's often the case that they lack resources to monitor and update infrastructure in a timely fashion or manage the water's chemistry carefully. In theory, larger city water systems adjust their water's chemistry continuously to prevent health risks, but, as we've learned from Flint, this is not always the case.”