Leave it to John Oliver to make even bridges sexy. In the latest episode of Last Week Tonight, our favorite funny man (OK, my favorite funny man) takes on the snooze-inducing topic of infrastructure — you know, pipes, power lines, bridges, “basically anything that can be destroyed in an action movie,” as Oliver puts it.
Put another way, infrastructure is why we can, occasionally, have nice things. (Water! Road trips! Avocados in Seattle in February!) Just whatever you do, don’t make us pay for it. As Oliver points out, our infrastructure is in desperate need of repair. As we have pointed out here many times, the most logical way of funding those repairs — at least the ones to bridges — would be by raising the gas tax. And yet that is a feat Congress cannot seem to muster, in part because there is so little public enthusiasm for it.
That’s where Oliver comes in. Thanks, you sexy man.
