BretLudwig
December 5th 08, 08:39 AM
WaPo finally notices that infrastructure takes a long time to get going!
>>"The Washington Post says what I've been saying for weeks: You can't
get
exciting, innovative SWPL infrastructure projects off the ground fast
enough to make a dent in unemployment before the 2010 elections. What you
can do fast is Mayor Daley stuff: blow through some money fixing potholes
(with the same old gunk that wears out four times faster than the
European
stuff), but that's not exactly the Hope and Change that Obama was
peddling
before the election.
Haste Could Make Waste on Stimulus, States Say
By Lori Montgomery and Michael D. Shear
With President-elect Barack Obama vowing to plow hundreds of billions
of dollars into the nation's infrastructure, some state officials are
warning that public works projects will fail to effectively lift the
country out of recession unless they are chosen carefully and implemented
rapidly.
In a private meeting yesterday in Philadelphia with 48 of the
nation's
governors, Obama stressed the importance of identifying projects that
could
put people to work quickly, participants said. He raised the specter of
Japan, which languished in a decade-long recession in part because
massive
spending on construction projects in the late 1990s flowed too slowly to
boost economic activity.
During the two-hour meeting, governors from both parties assured
Obama
that they could break ground almost immediately if Washington were to put
up the cash to make up for state budget shortfalls. But less than half of
the $136 billion in projects they said were ready to go could get
underway
within the next six months, according to the National Governors
Association. And choosing among those projects could prove politically
difficult, some governors said.
With the nation's economy in recession, Obama has pledged to create
or
preserve 2.5 million jobs over the next two years, primarily by
dedicating
federal dollars to rebuilding the nation's roads, bridges, schools and
airports and to expanding sources of alternative energy. Democrats hope
to
send a spending package that could exceed $500 billion to the White House
by Jan. 20, when Obama takes office.
In a recession that lasts only a few months, economists say spending
on infrastructure would do little to revive the economy; public works
projects typically take years to get underway. Even with projects that
are
ready to go -- meaning they have been designed, engineered and have
cleared
environmental and other bureaucratic hurdles -- only about a quarter of
the
overall cost is spent within the first year, according to the
Transportation Department.
Because this recession is projected to extend well into 2009, many
economists see infrastructure spending as a viable way to put people to
work and keep money circulating domestically. Unlike tax rebates, which
might be spent on foreign goods or used overseas, money for road projects
would be used to hire U.S. workers and to purchase domestic gravel and
steel.
Hmmhmmh ... China makes 38% of the world's steel compared to 7% for the
U.S. The U.S. is the world's largest importer of steel already, and China
is the world's largest exporter. With China's building boom slowing down,
I suspect that Chinese steelmakers will try hard to supply a big share of
Obama's infrastructure plan's steel needs.
The need for infrastructure improvements is enormous. Federal
transportation officials have estimated that the nation should spend $225
billion a year to modernize and maintain its crumbling roads, bridges and
transit systems.
Actually, that sounds exactly like the kind of projects you can quite
reasonably put off for a few years during an economic crisis. Let's pause
for a moment and notice just how counter-intuitive this whole
infrastructure spending mania is. The concept is that there are a whole
bunch of expensive projects that, back when we had a lot of money, didn't
seem worth doing; but now that we're broke, it's a great time to blow a
big wad of dough that we don't have anymore on projects that we could,
quite easily, put off until we're not so broke again.
Now, there are some advantages to doing big projects during an economic
collapse -- the price of Chinese steel is likely to be lower. And there
will presumably be some "stimulus" effect somewhere down the road. But,
let's be honest, this is basically Carnival in Rio Economics -- all the
rules of common sense are suspended and we're just going to magically
make
up some money and spend it and not worry about how we'll pay it back when
Ash Wednesday comes.
The real reason our infrastructure is pretty cruddy compared to other
First World countries is because, as the Big Dig fiasco in Boston shows,
we're bad at it. And the reason we're bad at efficiently spending big
piles of government money on infrastructure is because of all the
shakedown artists and leeches -- the unions, the politically connected
contractors, the community organizers, etc etc -- that have to get their
cut. (For example, to finish the Century Freeway to the LA Airport in
1988, CalTrans paids off hundreds of "community" groups to get them to
stop protesting it, including an AIDS project 10 miles to the north in
West Hollywood.)
Now, we've gone and elected a shakedown artist as President. Who knows,
maybe that will work on the "It takes a thief to catch a thief"
principle.
Perhaps Obama will pardon Tony Rezko and install him in the West Wing to
ram infrastructure projects past all the leeches with their hands out.
But with 41 states facing budget shortfalls, many governors are
cutting scheduled projects. Maryland and Virginia recently cut more than
$1 billion each from their six-year transportation programs. North
Carolina expects to cut $200 million by next June. And New York plans to
eliminate 10 percent of its projects, according to the American Road and
Transportation Builders Association.
That's basically what you or I do when we've had an economic setback --
we
paint the house less frequently and otherwise scrape by until we can
afford
to fix things up right. Of course, for the government, the rules are
completely different. Yeah, right ...
The idea is that improving infrastructure will make the country more
efficient through faster transportation and the like. Okay, but, keep in
mind that it will make the country less efficient during the economic
crisis because of the huge traffic jams caused by infrastructure
projects.
The slowdown in public spending, combined with the worst housing bust
in a generation, has devastated the construction industry. The
unemployment rate among construction workers was 10.8 percent in October,
well above the national average of 6.5 percent. Currently, nearly 1.1
million homebuilders, steelworkers and highway contractors are out of
work.
I know a way to lower the unemployment rate among construction workers,
but it will be a long, long time before it occurs to the Washington Post:
send the illegal immigrant construction workers home.
... The devil, however, is in the details. What emerged yesterday in
Philadelphia, and in ongoing discussions in Washington and in state
capitals, is the concern that injecting such huge sums into public works
projects could prove more complicated than anyone yet imagines.
Answering the simplest questions -- which projects are ready to go?
--
can be surprisingly difficult.
The governors yesterday offered school, road, transit, wastewater and
airport projects that California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) said
could
be ready soon, "literally, putting shovels into the dirt within a few
months after the administration starts."
California needs over $30 billion to balance its budget for Fiscal Year
2009 and it could get a lot worse than that. California and its counties
and municipalities should not be worrying about starting expensive new
construction projects. They should be worrying about meeting payroll in
2009 and 2010 for firemen, policemen, schoolteachers, and the like. I
wouldn't be surprised if a year from now we see giant piles of Chinese
steel sitting on the docks of Long Beach collecting dust while new
California construction hiring is postponed indefinitely and Obama's
infrastructure money is diverted to keeping current civil servants
employed. Teachers and prison guards and the like will be renamed "human
infrastructure."
But David Quam, director of federal relations for the National
Governors Association, said many of the projects would take 24 months.
Less than half of them -- projects worth about $57 billion -- would be
ready to go within 120 days, Quam said, the time frame set in a stimulus
bill that passed the House in September. An Obama aide said money
dedicated to infrastructure should be spent within 24 months, not devoted
to projects just getting underway at the end of 2010.
Yeah, Obama is going to get a lot of solar-powered magnetic levitation
commuter rail systems built within 24 months...
The NGA proposals, moreover, were assembled from lists prepared by
other organizations. The most commonly cited was created last January by
the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.
It
offers more than 3,000 highway projects that theoretically could put $18
billion to good use within 90 days.
$18 billion is 3.6% of the $500 billion they're talking about spending.
But that list is now nearly a year old, and for some states includes
construction and repaving projects that could not begin in the winter
months.
There are two seasons in Chicago for commuters: snow and ice season and
road repair season. Obama probably figures he can Chicagoize all of
America. But what else does he know other than the Chicago Way?
For other states, including Maryland and Virginia, that list does not
necessarily represent specific projects, state officials said.
In an interview, Maryland Transportation Secretary John D. Porcari
identified some "critically needed projects" that could get underway
quickly, including improvements to bottlenecks at the intersection at
Georgia Avenue and Randolph Road in Montgomery County and the
intersection
of Route 4 and Suitland Parkway in Prince George's County.
Virginia officials said they are still working on their list. But the
projects they select will depend on what restrictions Washington places
on
the money, one Virginia official said. Projects with huge political
support, such as the construction of a Metro line to Dulles airport,
would
not be good candidates for quick construction, the official said, while
more routine projects such as the completion of the Fairfax County
Parkway
between I-95 and Rolling Road or the repair of the VRE rail
infrastructure
might make the grade.
Aides said Obama's transition team is trying to craft a strategy for
prioritizing projects at the national level, relieving state officials of
that responsibility. But the best candidates for stimulus spending are
likely to be the least glamorous projects, the ones unlikely to thrill
members of Congress, several transportation officials said: Bridge
repair.
Bus purchases. Filling potholes.
"It's not as if people are going to say: 'You know what? We got some
money. We're going to go build a bridge.' For one thing, bridges take 13
years, start to finish," said Janet Kavinoky, a transportation expert
with
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "The dollars are for real basic work that
needs to be done to maintain the system we already have." ...
That's how my neighbors, who mostly have a lot more money than I do, feel
about repainting houses and cars. If their Infiniti's paintjob has lost a
little luster in the three years they've had it, they trade it in for a
new Lexus. On the other hand, my 11-year-old Accord's paint has
completely
eroded away from most of the roof and parts of the trunk and hood, but,
guess what, it still takes me from point A to point B. Maybe I'm not
traveling in style, but I like to think of myself as fashion-forward --
in
a couple of years, lots of people will be driving cars that look like
mine.
"I think we ought to have our eyes open. These steps come with a
cost," said Indiana Gov. Mitch E. Daniels Jr. (R). "Therefore, let's try
to make certain that they are well conceived, that they are really aimed
not at bailing out excesses in states that should have known better, but
aimed at putting people to work."
If Mitch is thinking about stepping up to being a major Republican
national figure, I've got three words of advice for him: Run against
California.
All my life, everybody in America hates California because the weather is
so nice. And now they've finally got a good reason for hating California:
California basically got us in this mess.
The way I see the politics playing out is that Gov. Arnold will become
Obama's new best friend in order to get California bailed out by the
federal taxpayers. In return, Obama will get to claim that he's
fulfilling
his campaign pledge to move beyond partisanship. Look how much the
Republican governor of California loves him! The media will chime in with
how all the Republicans should become just like Arnold and Obey Giant
Obama -- that's their only chance of survival.
This will create an opening among ornery Republican voters who hate the
media and Hollywood movie stars for an anti-Schwarzenegger Republican to
emerge, presumably a governor with a record of prudent administration, to
run against the country bailing out California."<<
http://isteve.blogspot.com/2008/12/wapo-finally-notices-that.html
--
Message posted using http://www.talkaboutaudio.com/group/rec.audio.opinion/
More information at http://www.talkaboutaudio.com/faq.html
>>"The Washington Post says what I've been saying for weeks: You can't
get
exciting, innovative SWPL infrastructure projects off the ground fast
enough to make a dent in unemployment before the 2010 elections. What you
can do fast is Mayor Daley stuff: blow through some money fixing potholes
(with the same old gunk that wears out four times faster than the
European
stuff), but that's not exactly the Hope and Change that Obama was
peddling
before the election.
Haste Could Make Waste on Stimulus, States Say
By Lori Montgomery and Michael D. Shear
With President-elect Barack Obama vowing to plow hundreds of billions
of dollars into the nation's infrastructure, some state officials are
warning that public works projects will fail to effectively lift the
country out of recession unless they are chosen carefully and implemented
rapidly.
In a private meeting yesterday in Philadelphia with 48 of the
nation's
governors, Obama stressed the importance of identifying projects that
could
put people to work quickly, participants said. He raised the specter of
Japan, which languished in a decade-long recession in part because
massive
spending on construction projects in the late 1990s flowed too slowly to
boost economic activity.
During the two-hour meeting, governors from both parties assured
Obama
that they could break ground almost immediately if Washington were to put
up the cash to make up for state budget shortfalls. But less than half of
the $136 billion in projects they said were ready to go could get
underway
within the next six months, according to the National Governors
Association. And choosing among those projects could prove politically
difficult, some governors said.
With the nation's economy in recession, Obama has pledged to create
or
preserve 2.5 million jobs over the next two years, primarily by
dedicating
federal dollars to rebuilding the nation's roads, bridges, schools and
airports and to expanding sources of alternative energy. Democrats hope
to
send a spending package that could exceed $500 billion to the White House
by Jan. 20, when Obama takes office.
In a recession that lasts only a few months, economists say spending
on infrastructure would do little to revive the economy; public works
projects typically take years to get underway. Even with projects that
are
ready to go -- meaning they have been designed, engineered and have
cleared
environmental and other bureaucratic hurdles -- only about a quarter of
the
overall cost is spent within the first year, according to the
Transportation Department.
Because this recession is projected to extend well into 2009, many
economists see infrastructure spending as a viable way to put people to
work and keep money circulating domestically. Unlike tax rebates, which
might be spent on foreign goods or used overseas, money for road projects
would be used to hire U.S. workers and to purchase domestic gravel and
steel.
Hmmhmmh ... China makes 38% of the world's steel compared to 7% for the
U.S. The U.S. is the world's largest importer of steel already, and China
is the world's largest exporter. With China's building boom slowing down,
I suspect that Chinese steelmakers will try hard to supply a big share of
Obama's infrastructure plan's steel needs.
The need for infrastructure improvements is enormous. Federal
transportation officials have estimated that the nation should spend $225
billion a year to modernize and maintain its crumbling roads, bridges and
transit systems.
Actually, that sounds exactly like the kind of projects you can quite
reasonably put off for a few years during an economic crisis. Let's pause
for a moment and notice just how counter-intuitive this whole
infrastructure spending mania is. The concept is that there are a whole
bunch of expensive projects that, back when we had a lot of money, didn't
seem worth doing; but now that we're broke, it's a great time to blow a
big wad of dough that we don't have anymore on projects that we could,
quite easily, put off until we're not so broke again.
Now, there are some advantages to doing big projects during an economic
collapse -- the price of Chinese steel is likely to be lower. And there
will presumably be some "stimulus" effect somewhere down the road. But,
let's be honest, this is basically Carnival in Rio Economics -- all the
rules of common sense are suspended and we're just going to magically
make
up some money and spend it and not worry about how we'll pay it back when
Ash Wednesday comes.
The real reason our infrastructure is pretty cruddy compared to other
First World countries is because, as the Big Dig fiasco in Boston shows,
we're bad at it. And the reason we're bad at efficiently spending big
piles of government money on infrastructure is because of all the
shakedown artists and leeches -- the unions, the politically connected
contractors, the community organizers, etc etc -- that have to get their
cut. (For example, to finish the Century Freeway to the LA Airport in
1988, CalTrans paids off hundreds of "community" groups to get them to
stop protesting it, including an AIDS project 10 miles to the north in
West Hollywood.)
Now, we've gone and elected a shakedown artist as President. Who knows,
maybe that will work on the "It takes a thief to catch a thief"
principle.
Perhaps Obama will pardon Tony Rezko and install him in the West Wing to
ram infrastructure projects past all the leeches with their hands out.
But with 41 states facing budget shortfalls, many governors are
cutting scheduled projects. Maryland and Virginia recently cut more than
$1 billion each from their six-year transportation programs. North
Carolina expects to cut $200 million by next June. And New York plans to
eliminate 10 percent of its projects, according to the American Road and
Transportation Builders Association.
That's basically what you or I do when we've had an economic setback --
we
paint the house less frequently and otherwise scrape by until we can
afford
to fix things up right. Of course, for the government, the rules are
completely different. Yeah, right ...
The idea is that improving infrastructure will make the country more
efficient through faster transportation and the like. Okay, but, keep in
mind that it will make the country less efficient during the economic
crisis because of the huge traffic jams caused by infrastructure
projects.
The slowdown in public spending, combined with the worst housing bust
in a generation, has devastated the construction industry. The
unemployment rate among construction workers was 10.8 percent in October,
well above the national average of 6.5 percent. Currently, nearly 1.1
million homebuilders, steelworkers and highway contractors are out of
work.
I know a way to lower the unemployment rate among construction workers,
but it will be a long, long time before it occurs to the Washington Post:
send the illegal immigrant construction workers home.
... The devil, however, is in the details. What emerged yesterday in
Philadelphia, and in ongoing discussions in Washington and in state
capitals, is the concern that injecting such huge sums into public works
projects could prove more complicated than anyone yet imagines.
Answering the simplest questions -- which projects are ready to go?
--
can be surprisingly difficult.
The governors yesterday offered school, road, transit, wastewater and
airport projects that California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) said
could
be ready soon, "literally, putting shovels into the dirt within a few
months after the administration starts."
California needs over $30 billion to balance its budget for Fiscal Year
2009 and it could get a lot worse than that. California and its counties
and municipalities should not be worrying about starting expensive new
construction projects. They should be worrying about meeting payroll in
2009 and 2010 for firemen, policemen, schoolteachers, and the like. I
wouldn't be surprised if a year from now we see giant piles of Chinese
steel sitting on the docks of Long Beach collecting dust while new
California construction hiring is postponed indefinitely and Obama's
infrastructure money is diverted to keeping current civil servants
employed. Teachers and prison guards and the like will be renamed "human
infrastructure."
But David Quam, director of federal relations for the National
Governors Association, said many of the projects would take 24 months.
Less than half of them -- projects worth about $57 billion -- would be
ready to go within 120 days, Quam said, the time frame set in a stimulus
bill that passed the House in September. An Obama aide said money
dedicated to infrastructure should be spent within 24 months, not devoted
to projects just getting underway at the end of 2010.
Yeah, Obama is going to get a lot of solar-powered magnetic levitation
commuter rail systems built within 24 months...
The NGA proposals, moreover, were assembled from lists prepared by
other organizations. The most commonly cited was created last January by
the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.
It
offers more than 3,000 highway projects that theoretically could put $18
billion to good use within 90 days.
$18 billion is 3.6% of the $500 billion they're talking about spending.
But that list is now nearly a year old, and for some states includes
construction and repaving projects that could not begin in the winter
months.
There are two seasons in Chicago for commuters: snow and ice season and
road repair season. Obama probably figures he can Chicagoize all of
America. But what else does he know other than the Chicago Way?
For other states, including Maryland and Virginia, that list does not
necessarily represent specific projects, state officials said.
In an interview, Maryland Transportation Secretary John D. Porcari
identified some "critically needed projects" that could get underway
quickly, including improvements to bottlenecks at the intersection at
Georgia Avenue and Randolph Road in Montgomery County and the
intersection
of Route 4 and Suitland Parkway in Prince George's County.
Virginia officials said they are still working on their list. But the
projects they select will depend on what restrictions Washington places
on
the money, one Virginia official said. Projects with huge political
support, such as the construction of a Metro line to Dulles airport,
would
not be good candidates for quick construction, the official said, while
more routine projects such as the completion of the Fairfax County
Parkway
between I-95 and Rolling Road or the repair of the VRE rail
infrastructure
might make the grade.
Aides said Obama's transition team is trying to craft a strategy for
prioritizing projects at the national level, relieving state officials of
that responsibility. But the best candidates for stimulus spending are
likely to be the least glamorous projects, the ones unlikely to thrill
members of Congress, several transportation officials said: Bridge
repair.
Bus purchases. Filling potholes.
"It's not as if people are going to say: 'You know what? We got some
money. We're going to go build a bridge.' For one thing, bridges take 13
years, start to finish," said Janet Kavinoky, a transportation expert
with
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "The dollars are for real basic work that
needs to be done to maintain the system we already have." ...
That's how my neighbors, who mostly have a lot more money than I do, feel
about repainting houses and cars. If their Infiniti's paintjob has lost a
little luster in the three years they've had it, they trade it in for a
new Lexus. On the other hand, my 11-year-old Accord's paint has
completely
eroded away from most of the roof and parts of the trunk and hood, but,
guess what, it still takes me from point A to point B. Maybe I'm not
traveling in style, but I like to think of myself as fashion-forward --
in
a couple of years, lots of people will be driving cars that look like
mine.
"I think we ought to have our eyes open. These steps come with a
cost," said Indiana Gov. Mitch E. Daniels Jr. (R). "Therefore, let's try
to make certain that they are well conceived, that they are really aimed
not at bailing out excesses in states that should have known better, but
aimed at putting people to work."
If Mitch is thinking about stepping up to being a major Republican
national figure, I've got three words of advice for him: Run against
California.
All my life, everybody in America hates California because the weather is
so nice. And now they've finally got a good reason for hating California:
California basically got us in this mess.
The way I see the politics playing out is that Gov. Arnold will become
Obama's new best friend in order to get California bailed out by the
federal taxpayers. In return, Obama will get to claim that he's
fulfilling
his campaign pledge to move beyond partisanship. Look how much the
Republican governor of California loves him! The media will chime in with
how all the Republicans should become just like Arnold and Obey Giant
Obama -- that's their only chance of survival.
This will create an opening among ornery Republican voters who hate the
media and Hollywood movie stars for an anti-Schwarzenegger Republican to
emerge, presumably a governor with a record of prudent administration, to
run against the country bailing out California."<<
http://isteve.blogspot.com/2008/12/wapo-finally-notices-that.html
--
Message posted using http://www.talkaboutaudio.com/group/rec.audio.opinion/
More information at http://www.talkaboutaudio.com/faq.html