This installment of my 2020 Platform series addresses a very mundane topic. Our national infrastructure may be a critical foundation for our economy, but it is dreadfully boring. Hence, the topic has been starved for oxygen on the various campaign trails. I thought it deserved at least a modicum of attention – even if it’s only from me. While I certainly don’t claim much expertise here, I suspect that I might know more than most folks in Washington. It’s not a particularly high bar.
Anyway, I’ll wait if you want to grab a beer.
The bottom line is that our nation’s roads, bridges, dams, seawalls, and airports need a whole lot of work. The American Society of Civil Engineers produces a quadrennial assessment of our nation’s infrastructure. In 2017, they gave our overall national infrastructure a “D+” grade and estimated it would take $4.5 trillion to address all of the issues. The ASCE report is quite depressing (covering 16 different infrastructure categories) and I find it rather embarrassing that the infrastructure of the United States of America couldn’t get into most community colleges.
Let’s briefly look at just one of these categories: Roads.
The Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 started the construction of over 40,000 miles of interstate highways in the U.S. and dramatically changed the American way of life. This Eisenhower-era project created a massive distribution network that American businesses used to great advantage to help make America the economic leader that it is today. The highways also enabled the growth of the suburbs and considerably widened the radius of typical societal connections.
The problem is that the original investment was made over 60 years ago and our highways are now falling apart. The Highway Trust Fund, which largely finances federal highway spending, is woefully underfunded. The ASCE report gave our nation’s roads a “D” and estimated that just the existing backlog of necessary road repairs would cost $420 billion. It’ll only get worse.
The unfortunate facts are that (a) road repairs cost money, (b) politicians want to spend money on flashy programs, and (c) repaving highways ain’t flashy.
I could produce similar summaries for the other 15 infrastructure categories, but I won’t. Frankly, I’m surprised you’re still reading. The 2020 candidates aren’t interested, either. Everyone says infrastructure is a major problem; no one wants to propose sane solutions. Solutions are hard.
So, for anyone not yet asleep, I’ll close with just a few suggestions of my own. While there’s a ton of detail missing, this blog entry is still more descriptive than either party’s platform.
Suggestions
Prop up the Highway Trust Fund: Double the federal motor fuel tax that feeds the Highway Trust Fund. It seems fair to put primary responsibility for maintaining our roads on the people that use them the most. That would only increase the typical cost of a tank of gas by about $1.20. That’s not going to break anyone’s budget.
Offer Infrastructure Bonds: Offer federally guaranteed bonds to local governments (states, counties, & cities) for approved infrastructure maintenance and improvements. While such projects would be vetted and selected at a federal level, local governments directly dealing with the infrastructure issues would generate all proposals, have full responsibility for implementations, and absorb the principal costs over time. The bond guarantees would be offered at extremely favorable rates, with some additional incentives, in return for compliance with some pre-defined criteria. Compliance would be evaluated every two years to maintain the rate. An evaluation committee led by business executives and academics would evaluate all proposals and track project compliance to keep the process as non-political as possible.
- Project Criteria:
- The project must maintain an up-to-date lifecycle cost analysis, detailing planned vs. actual costs and ROI. You know, like a real project in the real world.
- The local government must agree to retire the bond within 30 years.
- The project must meet pre-set minimal environmental criteria.
- The project must make use of a concurrent NWPA program (see below).
- Financial Incentives:
- For exceedingly clean and well-run projects, the rate may approach zero.
- For extremely important projects from a national perspecitive (say, the top 5%), some federal offsets could be granted.
Implement a New WPA Program: An NWPA could partially subsidize some infrastructure jobs and training. Running numerous infrastructure projects on such a massive scale will require a huge labor force and an NWPA could help put people to work that are otherwise unemployed or underemployed. It might also put undocumented / unemployed immigrants to immediate productive work, earning a living wage while providing a possible earned path to a legal status in the U.S. An NWPA could perhaps address multiple issues at once.