If you Build it, They will Come

Please forgive me, both for the cliche title and the attempt to blog away my insomnia. I promise I do have an excellent (if long) post for you if you keep reading. You might want to grab a chair.

I want to take a moment to talk about something that has been both derided as a waste of public money and hyped as the sexiest word in American Politics. I'm talking of course about Infrastructure. My education is in a design field that is allied with fields like Architecture, Art, and Engineering. I'm going to try to both make the case for infrastructure as well as talk about what people mean when they use that word. When we talk about spending on infrastructure, what sorts of projects are we discussing? When the President, the other week, announced $50 billion for the jump starting of a National Infrastructure Bank (known from here on out as the NIB) what sorts of things did he have (or should have) in mind?

Let's look at things as they now stand first. America's infrastructure is old. How old? It varies to be sure. But suffice it to say that many important projects in this country were built in the 1950s with the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act under President Eisenhower. Yes. A Republican. Infrastructure investment shouldn't be an anathema to Republican and Republican leaning lawmakers. Much of the infrastructure is even older than that. Much of it is in dire need of servicing as well. States have been putting off maintenance on important bits of this mystical infrastructure for years, citing a lack of money. In reality it's usually more a lack of will, though the country's general blindness to the state of it's infrastructure is certainly not making money for that sort of work easy to come by.

And now I've said another magic word! Work! That's right. Pretty much anything that falls under the definition of infrastructure needs to be built and maintained. And what is one thing this country has in abundance right now? That's right. Unemployed people. Especially unemployed people in the construction industry. This link to a press release from the Associated General Contractors of America (who I suspect know a thing or two about building) cited the unemployment rate in the construction industry as 27.1%. I'm fairly certain the number has changed little in the six months since that report was released. This is point number one. We have lots of unemployed people that could be put back to work through public and private investment in infrastructure right now. The housing market is flooded with houses that no one is buying and it's going to be a long time before all of these unemployed construction workers are putting up suburbs again. I'd wager it'll be never for the suburbs, but that that's a different post. This brings me to point number two. Investment.

Check out this Op-Ed Paul Krugman wrote for the New York Times earlier this month. It does deal with a specific project (the Arc Tunnel under the Hudson from New Jersey to Manhattan) but he hits on points that are relevant to all sorts of infrastructure spending right now. Specifically, I want to highlight this:

the price is right: with interest rates on federal debt at near-record lows, there has never been a better time to borrow for long-term investment.

That's the main point of his Op-Ed besides the unemployed construction workers which we've now covered as well. Borrowing money when the National Debt is approaching $14 Trillion may not look appealing. But if we're borrowing for tangible things that are going to make our country more productive in the long run it's worth it. If we can increase GDP we both get out of this recession and make the job of paying down the National Debt that much easier. And infrastructure of almost all types will increase GDP beyond just the people working and getting paid to build it. That tunnel that Governor Christie has killed would ensure the smooth flow of traffic from New Jersey to Manhattan, one of the largest financial and business centers in the world. And just check out what's doing the job right now. One tunnel, two tracks, built almost a hundred years ago. If that's not word for word a description of the state of our infrastructure as it stands now, I don't know what is.

So now that we've talked about why infrastructure spending (and by extension the NIB) is a good thing let's take a minute to look at what kind of projects we're talking about. In my view, infrastructure can be part of three broad groups (though many projects overlap, and a few will defy definition). In general you're looking at projects that deal with Building and Space, Transportation, or Energy and Communications. All of these areas are sadly not up to snuff currently in America. In addition I would describe each project regardless of which group it's in as also being either Monumental or Diffuse. Let's take a look at each category and then some real life projects that would be part of that group.

Building and Space
These projects are, as you might imagine, either buildings, public open spaces, or a combination of the two. This is often the area where it's easiest to convince private money to take part or fund something entirely. Sure, plenty of buildings are nondescript, but some would also be classified as Monumental. When I say Monumental, I mean that the work exists in a specific place, is well constructed and designed, and either is or has the potential to be a monument. We're talking tourists here. For constructed works I'm thinking, the Space Needle, the Flat Iron Building, Sears Tower and the like as well as Central Park, The Presidio, and other famous open spaces. Under way already? Try the construction under way for both buildings and open space in Lower Manhattan at Ground Zero. That link is worth it just for the photos and architectural renderings by the way. That's just a taste.

Transportation
Transportation projects are fairly obviously about moving people or goods from place to place. In that sense, many of them are going to be Diffuse as opposed to Monumental, but not all. These projects could range from the already discussed Arc Tunnel from New Jersey to New York, to construction and additions to subways, busses, and light rail like the Second Avenue Subway in Manhattan or the planned Orange Line addition to Portland's MAX Light Rail. These are all Diffuse or otherwise unviewable (meaning under the Hudson) by the public. In this section though you can also include projects like the new bridge near Hoover Dam that Rachel Maddow covered it last night. I'd call that Monumental. Wouldn't you agree?

This section would be remiss to leave out the continuing discussion about High Speed Rail (HSR) that has started in this country. This article at Infrastructurist (a fabulous blog) makes it clear why this is a liberal issue. Republicans view all this infrastructure spending as borrowing that the government can't sustain. There's also this post which highlights all the HSR lines that are receiving federal funding as of January. That map is pretty spectacular to me. And you can see where building even further in the future would go. An HSR backbone down the Pacific Coast from Vancouver, BC to Los Angeles? Who wouldn't want to make that trip in a matter of hours? Also, a connection through the heart of the country making Coast to Coast HSR travel possible isn't out of the long term question. They did it in the 1800s, why not now? I think we could find another Golden Spike.

Energy and Communications
Finally we have Energy and Communications which are, almost by definition, Diffuse. They're networks of transmission lines, computers, and the like. While they may not be as flashy as Alaska's Bridge to Nowhere, they're very important. In this section we not only have the opportunity to update our aging electrical and communications grids, we have the opportunity to build them afresh with technologies in mind like the Internet, mobile web surfing, and green energy production. If you think the electrical grid is fine the way it is, check out this piece from Joel Achenbach at National Geographic. It's fabulous. Not only do we need to update the transmission wires themselves though, we also have an opportunity to update how we get the electrons that run though those wires. That's where projects which the likes of Google have been supporting come in. In specific we have suggestions for an East Coast Wind Backbone, placing very large wind turbines off the coast and out of sight, as well as Geothermal in West Virginia Coal Country. Now if that can't break West Virginia's (and indeed the whole country's) dirty habit, I don't know what will.

Almost as an aside, I think there is room here too for collaboration on something with a little less function like Mount Rushmore between the future NIB and the National Endowment for the Arts. That's right, I said the NEA.

So what's the big picture? Most of the projects I've linked to have price tags running into the billions. But investment now, when we have every resource and financing trick on our side, can make the cost a bit less. Construction materials haven't been as cheap in decades. In closing, we, as America, have a choice. We can stand up and fix what is very rapidly breaking in this country and invest in the future. Or we can stand aside and let other countries (chief among them China) do what we are known for doing for over a century. If we do not choose to step up now, we can later. But it's going to be harder and come at a higher cost. If we make the investment now, we set the stage for another century of American greatness as well as begin to solve our problems right here, right now. Ranging from current unemployment and economic malaise to the desperate need to transition to energy sources other than oil and coal, the opportunity is now. I'll leave you with this scary chart from the Washington Post to think about.

Debt Hawkishness

Lets take an overview for a moment. Republicans far and wide are making the argument that we need to pay attention to and take care of the debt and deficit and as such, many of the Obama spending programs are completely unaffordable. Leaving aside for a moment how this worry over the debt was nowhere to be seen during the duration of the most recent Bush Administration while the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit Act and other laws like it as well as two off the record wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were put into effect, this is a very convenient argument.

Republicans say they are worried about the deficit to the point that any action on the part of the President to continue and expand the current, shaky recovery is unacceptable. They stop short however, at any action that affects Republican pet projects that might make an actual impact on America's debt.

Simply by allowing the 2001 and 2003 Bush Tax Cuts to expire along with his hold on the Estate Tax and allowing the Capital Gains and Dividends taxes to revert to the levels they were during President Clinton's administration as proposed in S. 722 in the 111th Congress  as well as H.R. 470 and other similar bills we could save $3.5 Trillion through fiscal year  2017. That's simply by letting all of these tax advantage for the rich put in place by the Bush Administration to lapse. For those of you who are unaware, $3.5 Trillion is actually a dent in the federal debt of about $13.5 Trillion currently. Allowing any of these provision to be extended, as Republicans at large are running on, ADDS $3.5 Trillion to the federal debt over the next 7 years. Check out Florida Senate Candidate Marco Rubio's own website. He details his 12 ideas for helping the economy. Extending the Bush Tax Cuts permanently is his first plank! Remember that's $3.5 Trillion dollars through 2017. But the deficit and debt are just too much! Or watch this clip from Rachel Maddow. She covers all the salient facts. Carly Fiorina's discussion about how the tax cuts "pay for themselves" as well as each president's total debt increase running back to the Carter Administration. Spoiler, every Republican runs up the debt more than any Democrat.

Now that I've beaten that dead horse for a while, lets take a look at actual changes to the budget. I've written before about American defense spending and its relationship to our budget as a whole. But let me go over it again. We spend roughly $600 billion annually through the Department of Defense. That's more than the rest of the world combined. I'll advocate cutting the defense budget by half to $300 billion. If we get out of Iraq and Afghanistan that should be doable. All of this is with the understanding that such a cut would be implemented after going over the defense budget line by line with people who understand it better than I do, that is any such cuts would need military input.

The Federal Highway Administration got a budget of $40.1 billion in FY 2009. I understand that much of this goes to maintain existing roadways and that is a good thing. But we are still building new highways. The era of the car is over. Gas prices will only continue to climb as we move past peak oil. We need to look at ways to save in the FHWA and if not save, at least to redirect much of the funds dedicated to new road construction to other projects including intra-city light rail and HSR lines between cities. The administration has started doing this with the bailout funds but the percentages were far from adequate.

This post could go on and on. But it's intended to point out the pure hypocrisy of the GOP talking points as of late. If you are going to harp on the debt and deficit you can't keep advocating tax cuts for the rich and a 100% opposition to raising rates ever. The simple fact is that if the American people desire the continuation of services they have come to expect from their government including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare programs, and federal funding of Schools and Transportation along with a capable military and a growing middle class, the cash will have to come from somewhere. Because it sure isn't coming from anywhere now.

Thurgood Marshall was an Activist Loser!

At least according to Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama. He's the leading Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee that is currently holding hearings for Elena Kagan's nomination to the SCOTUS. Since Senator Sessions is the leading Republican it's important to note that he's both heading up the Republican opposition to Kagan's nomination (psst, it's all for show) and would be the chair of the Judiciary Committee if the Republicans do the unlikely and wrest control of the Senate from Democrats in November. And he thinks that Thurgood Marshall was bad for the country. As Rachel Maddow pointed out last night on her show he is one of a very small group of people who are pretty universally considered to be the gods of the Civil Rights Movement in this country. Though I guess that should come as no surprise for the man who has, among other gems, called a white civil rights attorney a traitor to his race.

To more important topics at hand, the Kagan nomination. I think I've already mentioned earlier that I don't like her as the nominee. I'm sure she's great as Solicitor General and an all around nice person. She even got good reviews from the campus veterans groups while she was the Dean at Harvard Law. But she has the (in my opinion fatal) flaw that all nominees have for the last twenty years or so. She's more conservative than the justice she's been nominated to replace! We've gone way downhill as far as SCOTUS is concerned since the Warren and Burger courts. Also worth noting, the last four Chief Justices have been chosen by Republican presidents. And we won't get to pick another one for years because Chief Justice Roberts is only 55. In short, Democratic presidents in general need to show some backbone and nominate some true liberals for the court. Yes, doing this means being willing to spend some political capital on the nomination fight rather than some pet legislation. But there is hardly a more important responsibility granted to the Executive. Most justices serve for twenty years or more. The choice of who a president nominates can have lasting effects on the country for years after a president has served their term and indeed beyond their lifetimes. As an example, Ronald Reagan nominated still serving Justices Kennedy and Scalia as well as recent retiree Sandra Day O'Connor. Justice Stevens is being replaced only now and he was nominated by President Ford. Chief Justice Rehnquist was a Nixon nomination from 1971! 

In short, is Elena Kagan qualified? Totally. More than qualified. Is she the right choice for the country right now when we already have a court handing down 5-4 decisions like Citizens United v. FEC? Definitely not.

Outmoded

An important man once said, "The most frightening nine words in the english language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'" That man was of course former President Ronald Reagan. It is, of course, this President than Republicans and conservatives have lauded since he left office in 1988 as THE American President. His ideas that government wasn't just a problem, but that it was THE problem have resounded throughout American politics and continue to this day.

Aside from my feeling that if you think government is such a problem, perhaps you shouldn't be in the business of governing I take other issues with this. But I'm going to borrow from President Reagan today and say that the most frightening eight words in the english language today are, "I'm from BP and I'm here to help."

Beyond any discussion of the Deepwater Horizon Spill as an environmental disaster or as something we can use to spur, as the President said last night a "clean energy future for America" I feel like we are seeing first hand the ways the deregulation beginning in the Reagan era from that deep-seated mistrust of government have left us as a people helpless. Sure, this has been the theme on the issue of Wall Street reform for a while now, but I don't think many Americans understand how deeply this deregulation has seeped into our corporate culture. Not only have the banks been freed to do what they please, but so have other major corporations, specifically in the energy industry. We saw it with the way Massey Energy was handling the Upper Big Branch Mine and we are seeing it, and reaping the rewards all along the Gulf Coast, in the response from BP, or lack thereof, to the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Mother Jones magazine has an article up right now that talks about the campaign BP is waging to make sure the public doesn't understand how poor a job they are doing. You can check the article here. Make sure you at least scroll through the whole thing. The bottom section has photos of what appear to be simple paper towels that they're placing on top of the oil. As if Brawny is going to get the job done! "It's super absorbant! Why not?" BP's board says. In general I've found very few national media outlets that are covering this in the way it should be. Rachel Maddow has been right on the ball. Most of her coverage has been of the lame ass job BP is doing of keeping oil already out of the riser pipe off shores and out of sensitive marshlands instead of focusing on "capping the well" like everybody else seems worried about. Mother Jones is the other outlet that seems to be on top of things. All the other good reporting is coming from local Gulf Coast TV and radio stations as well as newspapers! Those silly things printed on paper that no one reads anymore. Remember them? Publications like the Times Picayune. Congrats to you guys. We're all paying the price though for the poor reporting.