Federal Funding on Infrastructure Agenda Driven

This explains why the government persuades local governments to take 'seed' money for projects that big brother deems essential. Once the local or state government takes the money, they become entangled in the federal web of over-sight and control.

If one takes a moment to see how this works to imprison state and local authorities and forces them to do things that constituents don't want them to do, didn't elect them to do, it then isn't difficult to understand why the people are gathering out front of the state houses with their pitch forks.

It's becoming clear, the voters don't like being 'enemies of the state'. They don't like being cast aside while the people they elected perform tasks unrelated to the needs of the voter. Is this the start of the second American revolution? You decide.

Infrastructure Funding: Taking the Wrong Path
Source: Peter Swanson, "Infrastructure Funding: Taking the Wrong Path," National Center for Policy Analysis, December 1, 2011.

A recent American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) report estimated the United States will need to spend $2.2 trillion over the next few years to bring the country's infrastructure to acceptable levels. A $2 trillion projected estimate for infrastructure sounds daunting, but it is important to examine what planners consider "infrastructure," says Peter Swanson, a Hatton W. Sumners Scholar at the National Center for Policy Analysis.

Traditionally, infrastructure spending included highways, railroads, bridges and waterways. Infrastructure now encompasses public parks and recreation, schools, and high-speed rail and transit projects. Public transit is often inefficient, underutilized and subject to cost overruns. Yet the ASCE Report Card includes these items as investment needs, rather than optional amenities. For example:

The $2.2 trillion in infrastructure spending needs outlined in the civil engineers' report card includes $63 billion for improvements along highly questionable Amtrak routes as well as railways that carry freight.

The total also includes $160 billion for schools and $85 billion for parks and recreation. In addition, there is $265 billion for public transit bus and light-rail projects.

Although there has been a push by the federal government to increase federal infrastructure investment, states and localities account for the lion's share of the spending. Consider:

Federal spending represented only 23 percent of total public spending on infrastructure in 2007, according to a Congressional Budget Office report. Of this 23 percent, just 7 percent went toward operating and maintenance expenses for already established infrastructure. The other 16 percent was capital funding for new projects.

The United States has the capability to address the country's infrastructure issues, but there is only a loose connection between federal spending and improvements in public infrastructure because of misguided federal policies. Typically, the federal government offers seed funding to states to initiate capital spending projects, but leaves the states to complete and maintain them.

As a result, state and local governments are encouraged to spend money on projects that may be a lower priority than projects initiated and funded locally.