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Funny to think about these costs and the health of the national commons from a point of view of the Federal budget. For example, you point out it would cost 2
by _wire_ 2y ago
Funny to think about these costs and the health of the national commons from a point of view of the Federal budget.
For example, you point out it would cost 2 billion to migrate Houston's above-ground to storm proof below ground.
If we could lop off 1/4 of the DoD and intelligence budget of $1T/yr and dedicate it to infrastructure, we could pay for 125 Huston-scale improvement projects per year. And still have the most expensive DoD in the world! But that would be misguided for "national security".
Plus the Federal budget is essentially free money, constructed as needed, where such value is incarnated via the wealth of the commons, where such wealth is most truly incarnated by infrastructure.
But for unknown reasons, such pragmatism is politically untenable.
- gunapologist99 2y ago> Plus the Federal budget is essentially free money, constructed as needed It's amusing and a bit scary that someone thinks the federal budget is essentially free money, constructed as needed.
- hedora 2y agoThe US dollar literally is constructed as needed. It's pretty darn close to free thanks to electronic banking. However, like all magic, using it has severe (and generally predictable) consequences. Unlike fictional magic, the consequences take 4 years to kick in like clockwork. That, and the US's two term limit meant that presidents get to print money without political consequence. Worst case, they lose the midterms, then run again while blaming the next guy for the problem they created. Hypothetically, of course.
- gunapologist99 2y agoPresidents don't print money. Congress approves stimuli in the form of spending. Spending is always inflationary in nature because it injects money into the economy. The Federal Reserve, nearly completely independent (for better or worse) from the Executive and Legislative branches, prints money in the form of quantitative easing and controls other levers through lending and interest rate strategies.
- yownie 2y agojfc you're like the spiritual avatar of /r/confidentiallyincorrect.
- galdosdi 2y agoIt's free if you spend it on a durable asset that is as or more valuable than the cash was, which can often be true of infrastructure. Your balance sheet goes up not down after the spend then.
- gunapologist99 2y agoThere are vanishingly few examples of infrastructure spending that don't turn into massive, wasteful boondoggles; perhaps the Interstate Highway system. The national railroad system a century prior and even the Internet were nearly entirely built with private funds.
- Qwertious 2y agoThe interstate highway system is arguably a massively wasteful boondoggle - it subsidises trucks at the cost of the far more efficient and less-polluting rail.
- kjkjadksj 2y agoHuge military boon having the interstate as well for our icbm truck platforms.
- massysett 2y agoRailroads got massive subsidies in at least two forms: huge land grants, and the power of the U.S. Army to wage war on the native peoples who otherwise would have stood in their way.
- kjkjadksj 2y agoI thought by the time the railroad came about the US army already did that for the various ranch lands the railroad went through?
- galdosdi 2y agoThe land grant thing is sort of weird though. Hard to think of it as that big of a subsidy when the land was so so low in value prior to the railroad and the railroad's construction is what made the adjoining land so valuable. I wouldn't call it a subsidy at all -- but rather an investment that turned nearly worthless land into much more valuable land and attracted much more investment dwarfing the original "subsidy"
- ericmay 2y ago> For example, you point out it would cost 2 billion to migrate Houston's above-ground to storm proof below ground. The State of Texas had a budget of $188 billion [1]. In 2023 they projected a surplus of $18 billion [2]. Maybe they can budget it in? What the federal government versus state governments should pay for is a big can of worms, but I'm not sure why it seems so easy to just look at the DoD budget and says "there's money there let's use that" as if it's not doing anything or it's all waste. If anything (unfortunately) the DoD budget probably needs to be increased quite a bit given the geopolitical challenges we face. [1]. https://everytexan.org/2023/11/03/the-2024-25-texas-budget-the-big-picture/ https://everytexan.org/2023/11/03/the-2024-25-texas-budget-t... [2] https://abc13.com/texas-legislature-2023-state-budget-surplus-186-billion-plan/13873047/ https://abc13.com/texas-legislature-2023-state-budget-surplu...
- vondur 2y agoHouston is having some budget issues currently: <https://abc13.com/houston-budget-mayor-john-whitmire-city-services-cut-hfd-raises/14570218/ https://abc13.com/houston-budget-mayor-john-whitmire-city-se...> How much should the states bail out mismanaged cities? How much should the Federal Government bail out mismanaged states? Budgets aren't "free money" as you assert.
- bobthepanda 2y agoThe general problem states see is that metropolitan regions are more productive and produce more taxes, so in many cases the state cannot necessarily wash its hands of cities. The largest municipal fiscal crises in the nation so far have been NYC in the ‘70s and Detroit. There is also the case of Puerto Rico, although one could argue the feds have more culpability there since its status as a non-state subject to federal laws makes a lot of avenues for resolving crises illegal.