Sometimes humor is the best teacher. So thanks to HBO-TV’s John Oliver, host of the comedy show “Last Week Tonight,” the topic of infrastructure may finally find some students.
As this March 2015 clip explains, via Oliver’s satirical quips, infrastructure isn’t sexy. Especially the repair part, where potholes are filled and cracked bridge buttresses are repaired. These are the essential public works projects that don’t get ribbon cuttings. Consequently, we know it’s a growing problem and yet we can’t seem to find the funding to make timely, even life-saving repairs.
To drive home the point, Oliver parodies the disaster movies that often show catastrophically crumbling roads and bridges with a spoof “Infrastructure” movie trailer. The tagline, “If anything exciting happens, we’ve done it wrong,” captures the essential problem in our event-driven approach to public policy.
