I support this proposal (or course what the money is spent on matters too).
But what data do we have that can provide an estimate of how useful upgraded "infrastructure" actually is? Where I live, they've recently completed a 4-lane short section of "freeway" into town, replacing a two-lane road. The new road looks nicer, its smoother, its a little longer distance wise, it actually has somewhat poorer access to town, although that depends on where exactly you are going, and it sports quite a few intersections that cross the full 4-lanes. It was started prior to the recession, stalled out, and in fact got completed with stimulus $. Total cost was around $56M. What did the $56M do for us? Its not clear at all to me. This is into a town of about 40K people (Walla Walla WA).
I've been a firm believer in Keynesian economics, because the notion of one player spending to make up for a temporary shortfall in other players spending makes good theoretical sense. But having watched the stimulus spending during this recession, I'm slowly (too slowly??) coming to the view that misallocation of spending does indeed trump all else. Ironic that in the last election Palin was rightfully derided for the Bridge-to-Nowhere, but IMHO, Obama is now giving us the Plan-to-Nowhere and just this most recent one is about 200x as large, and thats the start. We've already had >3000x nowhere to date.
If anyone is going to rescue Keynes, they have to do some careful determination of the ROI for these projects. If the goal is simply as much union wage payroll as possible on gold plated projects, where some existing infrastructure already provides 95% of the utility of the new gold plating, we are not being served well. |
