The Ongoing GOP Attack On America’s Infrastructure

“Mr. Mica said of his House colleagues,

‘They wouldn’t vote on a Mother’s Day resolution
if it had extra spending on it.’“¹

In August 2012, Mark Thoma, economist and Fellow at the American Century Foundation, commented on the incontrovertible need for U.S. infrastructure investment². He was stunned by Congress’s inability to fund it, even though it would surely boost to the general economy, a supposed goal of the GOP:

“The first is infrastructure spending. We cannot afford to fall behind the rest of the world in terms of our infrastructure development, but that’s exactly what we are doing. At a time when interest rates are as low as we are likely to see, when labor and other costs are minimal due to lack of demand during the downturn, and when the need is so high, why aren’t we making a massive  investment in infrastructure, which is ultimately an investment in our future?  There are many, many public investments we could make where the benefits surely  exceed the costs – these are things the private sector won’t do on its own even  though they are highly valuable to society – so what are we waiting for?³

Particularly confusing for Thoma – and for most of us – is the Republican blockade of infrastructure spending when, in fact, it betrays their own professed beliefs in supply side economics:

“If there’s any policy Republicans ought to be able to support, it’s infrastructure spending. It’s inherently a supply-side policy, it helps to promote future economic growth, and it’s an investment with large, positive net benefits. But Republicans see a ‘we won’t build that’ approach to infrastructure spending. . .”⁴

Since Thoma’s summer 2012 article, the GOP stance on infrastructure remains unchanged even with their strength reduced after November 2012’s electoral train wreck. It’s still, “No infrastructure for you!”  

To fend off the horrific possibility of maintaining America’s bridges and roads, the GOP used their favorite tactic early and often, hostage taking. Here’s an example. In January 2012 the House GOP tried to tie infrastructure investment to – guess what –  their Holy Grail, expanded oil-and-gas development which they asserted would:

“. . . help pay for infrastructure improvements. When new energy resources are  developed, we’ll need updated infrastructure to bring it to market. This creates  a link that will allow for both American energy jobs and American infrastructure  jobs to be created simultaneously,” said House Natural Resources Committee  Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) in a statement.”⁵

Such a deal! The proposal went nowhere. Hostage taking remains, and buttresses their other blunt object, the Senate filibuster.

Moreover, not only is infrastructure investment essential given the accelerating deterioration of many bridges, highways, wastewater treatment facilities, electricity grid, and tunnels⁷, it is an especially wise time for the federal government to borrow to do so:

“It comes as we may be approaching the end of a five year period in which investing in the nation’s physical infrastructure has been something close to a free lunch. With interest rates near all-time lows and millions of construction workers unemployed, the last few years have been a time that it would have been a historical bargain for the United States to do upgrades to roads, bridges, and airports that will eventually need to take place anyway. It has been a political breakdown—in particular conservatives’ view of almost any non-defense federal spending as wasteful—standing in the way.”⁸

As Republicans always point out, private businesses desire to invest in a favorable borrowing environment. Interest rates now are as favorable as they have been in many decades. So, once again, in opposing infrastructure investment they belie their own beliefs.

Is it possible that in order to deconstruct the national government, that many Republicans will preside over the terminal deterioration of our national infrastructure, to stand by as more bridges collapse? Yes, it is.  We face a political insurgency, not politics as usual. This decades long rules-busting guerrilla warfare has no other purpose than to destroy the concept of “general welfare.”

The presently malignant GOP will not give up, regardless of election reults. Democrats everywhere, on this and other issues, need to stand taller, shout louder, and use and extend their advantages to the fullest. Otherwise, history may record our Civil War as a Pyrhhic victory . . .