We used to do great things in the US. Families crossed North America on wagons and settled the West.  We fought and won World War II. We put a man on the moon.  And the government used to build canals, such as The Erie Canal in 1825: "New York legislators became interested in the possibility of building a canal across New York in the first decade of the 19th century. Shipping goods west from Albany was a costly and tedious affair; there was no railroad yet, and to cover the distance from Buffalo to New York City by stagecoach took two weeks. Governor Clinton enthusiastically took up the proposal to build a canal from Buffalo, on the eastern point of Lake Erie, to Albany, on the upper Hudson, passing through the gap in the mountains in the Mohawk Valley region. By 1817, he had convinced the legislature to authorize the expenditure of $7 million for the construction of a canal that he proposed would be 363 miles long, 40 feet wide, and four feet deep.  ...(Read Full Post)