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Is there anywhere that explains why governments in the US don’t build infrastructure, as a long-term investment?

walleeee 6y ago
Just a wad of totally unscientific, interwoven armchair theories: political cycles are much shorter than the relevant timescales for long-term infrastructure investment; attention spans today are shorter than they used to be; the long slide of most of the "middle class" into financial insecurity means fewer people have the means and free time to educate themselves about and advance civic concerns; some political leaders in the U.S. have for decades undermined public support for public works, as well as public faith in government; American culture is now far more fractured and heterogeneous than it used to be, making coalitions between interest groups more difficult to form and maintain (recent trends in political and social thought, according to which individual and group identities are rendered increasingly explicit - along with the ability, courtesy of electronic communication, to associate almost exclusively with those who identify similarly - may exacerbate this)
tonyedgecombe 6y ago
My guess is infrastructure doesn't required hordes of unskilled people anymore. I've been watching our water authority put a new water main in outside my house and I didn't see a single person swinging a pick. Instead there was a lot of technology being used and put in the ground. People aren't going to hop from barista to this sort of work any time soon.
amanaplanacanal 6y ago
My sense is that states and localities don’t have the money for infrastructure projects. They mostly can’t even afford maintenance on the infrastructure they have. Anything that gets built has to come from the feds somehow, so it’s up to Congress. The democratically controlled house would have to come up with a bill, then the republican controlled senate would have to agree to it, then the president would have to sign it. I don’t think there is that much coordination happening at the federal level right now.
- vharuck 6y ago
  >I don’t think there is that much coordination happening at the federal level right now. There is, but it's divided between two types of bills: boring and sensationalist. Boring bills usually get coordination, bipartisan support, and little news coverage. Sensationalist bills, even if they align with both parties' platforms, get drawn out and played for show on the news. Sadly, only a few acts can show at the same time. And in the current political world, new acts keep popping up (email dumps, whistleblowers, official tweets). So things that take a while, like infrastructure, never get to launch. (How many times has it been "infrastructure week"?)
ls612 6y ago
In addition to the other responses, a lot of the low hanging fruit from infrastructure in the US has already been claimed, the Interstate system for instance was a massive investment but once it is built the benefits from further transportation infrastructure are more marginal and much of the spending goes towards maintenance which is extremely unsexy. To give a more tech focused example: building infrastructure to give everyone in the US 50 mbps internet would be expensive and quite valuable. Improving that infrastructure from 50 to a gig would also be expensive but (for now) far less valuable.
- vharuck 6y ago
  >maintenance which is extremely unsexy In Pennsylvania, we've put off maintenance so long, the politician who funds it will become the sexiest man in the state. People here hate potholes more than redirected traffic.
  - ls612 6y ago
    Maybe. Charlie Baker and Larry Hogan have used that model of down to earth local governance to become the most popular governors in the country while being republicans in blue states. It just isn’t clear that political model will fly in states without extremely high educational attainment.
marcell 6y ago
One example, in California the high speed rail project is bogged down due to land acquisition problems and lack of funding.

Just a wad of totally unscientific, interwoven armchair theories: political cycles are much shorter than the relevant timescales for long-term infrastructure investment; attention spans today are shorter than they used to be; the long slide of most of the "middle class" into financial insecurity means fewer people have the means and free time to educate themselves about and advance civic concerns; some political leaders in the U.S. have for decades undermined public support for public works, as well as public faith in government; American culture is now far more fractured and heterogeneous than it used to be, making coalitions between interest groups more difficult to form and maintain (recent trends in political and social thought, according to which individual and group identities are rendered increasingly explicit - along with the ability, courtesy of electronic communication, to associate almost exclusively with those who identify similarly - may exacerbate this)

tonyedgecombe 6y ago

My guess is infrastructure doesn't required hordes of unskilled people anymore. I've been watching our water authority put a new water main in outside my house and I didn't see a single person swinging a pick. Instead there was a lot of technology being used and put in the ground. People aren't going to hop from barista to this sort of work any time soon.

amanaplanacanal 6y ago

My sense is that states and localities don’t have the money for infrastructure projects. They mostly can’t even afford maintenance on the infrastructure they have. Anything that gets built has to come from the feds somehow, so it’s up to Congress. The democratically controlled house would have to come up with a bill, then the republican controlled senate would have to agree to it, then the president would have to sign it. I don’t think there is that much coordination happening at the federal level right now.

vharuck 6y ago
>I don’t think there is that much coordination happening at the federal level right now. There is, but it's divided between two types of bills: boring and sensationalist. Boring bills usually get coordination, bipartisan support, and little news coverage. Sensationalist bills, even if they align with both parties' platforms, get drawn out and played for show on the news. Sadly, only a few acts can show at the same time. And in the current political world, new acts keep popping up (email dumps, whistleblowers, official tweets). So things that take a while, like infrastructure, never get to launch. (How many times has it been "infrastructure week"?)

ls612 6y ago

In addition to the other responses, a lot of the low hanging fruit from infrastructure in the US has already been claimed, the Interstate system for instance was a massive investment but once it is built the benefits from further transportation infrastructure are more marginal and much of the spending goes towards maintenance which is extremely unsexy. To give a more tech focused example: building infrastructure to give everyone in the US 50 mbps internet would be expensive and quite valuable. Improving that infrastructure from 50 to a gig would also be expensive but (for now) far less valuable.

vharuck 6y ago
>maintenance which is extremely unsexy In Pennsylvania, we've put off maintenance so long, the politician who funds it will become the sexiest man in the state. People here hate potholes more than redirected traffic.
- ls612 6y ago
  Maybe. Charlie Baker and Larry Hogan have used that model of down to earth local governance to become the most popular governors in the country while being republicans in blue states. It just isn’t clear that political model will fly in states without extremely high educational attainment.

marcell 6y ago

One example, in California the high speed rail project is bogged down due to land acquisition problems and lack of funding.