Infrastructure Is No Slam Dunk
by Jerry Jasinowski
One of the few political issues that everyone seems to agree on today is the need for more investment in infrastructure. But it is not as simple as many seem to think. In fact, I would say it is at least as complicated as health care and tax reform, and maybe more so.
The single greatest infrastructure project in this country was the Interstate Highway System that has bound the country together and sparked vigorous economic expansion. But infrastructure today is a malleable term that encompasses a wide range of human activity beyond roads and bridges. Infrastructure includes waterways, dams, airports, subways, electricity transmission, oil and gas pipelines, railroads, ocean ports, fiber optic cable, etc. It ain’t just highways and bridges.
There is general agreement that much of our infrastructure is obsolete and in need of upgrade. The American Society of Civil Engineers contends we need to invest $2 trillion more than planned over the next decade just to keep up with deterioration. But the Society does not say where the money will come from.
The fact is we are spending huge sums of money on our infrastructure right now. It may not be enough, but it is substantial. I see it everywhere I go – highways and bridges under construction, some new and some old – making for annoying delays. We are pouring billions into renewable energy sources – solar and wind. We are building natural gas pipelines and new facilities to export natural gas. It’s not as if we’re doing nothing on infrastructure.
Congress will inevitably be slow to appropriate trillions of fresh money for infrastructure when it cannot meet its obligations now and is concerned about the soaring deficits and national debt. Even worse, we don’t have a large enough labor force for a major new commitment to infrastructure. Unemployment is already at its lowest point in years. We could not fill the gap with immigrant labor because the Trump Administration is shutting it down.
Also, we could not today build the Interstate Highway System or the dams of the Tennessee Valley Authority or any other major project like in the old days. There are powerful organizations and activist citizen’s groups that oppose any kind of new development, especially things that might impinge the environment, which is to say everything. Also there is the ever present NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) mentality. Any large commitment to infrastructure would launch an avalanche of endless lawsuits, dragging projects out for years on end.
Finally, Congress is Congress. All members want to bring goodies home for their constituents. Congress would as always appropriate funds for roads and bridges to nowhere, and money disbursed to states would disappear overnight. State politicians would insist it was being spent on infrastructure projects already underway. In sum, a major commitment to infrastructure would be a complex undertaking. Given the current gridlock in Congress, it’s hard to see it happening anytime soon.
Jerry Jasinowski, an economist and author, served as President of the National Association of Manufacturers for 14 years and later The Manufacturing Institute. Jerry is available for speaking engagements. August 2017