[astrodust]

Every day the costs of prevention go up, and the costs of mitigation get even higher.

With politics in the equation, it's better to kick the can down the road and let someone else deal with it than to shoulder the cost now and save the future literal trillions.

See also: American infrastructure.

If there was a generally accepted method for reporting future liabilities and politicians could be graded on how much they addressed those, rather than the immediate keep taxes low pressure they seem to respond to, we might be better off. Then again, there are voters that would rather save a hundred bucks in taxes today even if ten years later they'll have to fork out thousands.