The Amtrak tragedy has predictably elicited another round of jawing about the allegedly ‘disgraceful’ condition of America’s ‘infrastructure’. If Washington only had the courage to spend and borrow itself silly – -why the nation could leap out of its growth and jobs rut in a single bound. Or so goes the claim of mainstream politicians and pundits.
A recent jeremiad by one Philip K. Howard is par for the course. The latter is a lawyer and founder of a lobby group sporting a name – ‘Common Good’ – – which itself is reason in itself to be wary.
But almost every category of U. S. infrastructure is in a dangerous or obsolete state – roads and bridges, power generation and transmission, water treatment and delivery, ports and air traffic control. There is no partisan divide on what is needed: a national initiative to modernize our 50- to 100-year-old infrastructure. The upside is as rosy as the status quo is dire. The United States can enhance its competitiveness, achieve a greener footprint and create upward of 2 million jobs.
That entire paragraph is pure hogwash. The overwhelming share of the nation’s infrastructure is not obsolete or dangerous; is not being starved for dollars; and has virtually nothing to do with the dramatic trend-line of decline in main street growth, investment, good jobs and real living standards.
In the above quoted passage, Howard attempts to throw in everything but the kitchen sink in his list of purportedly crumbling infrastructure, but that’s a ruse to deflect from the giant flaw at the center of the case. Namely, 98% of US infrastructure is either the responsibility of the private business system or state and local government.
This post was published at David Stockmans Contra Corner by David Stockman ‘ May 18, 2015.
Recent Comments