Investing More, Smarter in Our Infrastructure
This week, the House of Representatives passed another extension in a series of short-term patches for the Highway Trust Fund. With Senate consent money will continue to flow, but the continued short extensions continue to damage America’s long-term competitiveness. The lack of a long-term investment plan delays on-going projects and does not give policymakers the opportunity to positively shape America’s infrastructure future.
More than seven years ago, then NDN Fellow Michael Moynihan wrote a paper entitled, “Investing in Our Common Future: U.S. Infrastructure.” This 2007 piece holds up incredibly well and focuses on the history of U.S. investment as well as the challenges we face in the 21st century for pulling together the politic-will to fund many of these projects. Do note that this piece was written before the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (“Stimulus”) was passed in 2009 as well as the drastic budget cuts that followed after debt-ceiling negotiations in 2011. Still, many of the proposals Moynihan argues for have yet to see passage or implementation in federal policy as of May 2015.
An excerpt:
“It is not just a matter of finding the funds to invest in upgrading our nation’s infrastructure, although the American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that raising America’s current overall infrastructure grade from a D to a B will cost $1.6 trillion. Just as important — if not more so — is restoring our national and political will to invest in a shared future. Each generation inherits a responsibility not only to maintain existing infrastructure but also to make the long-term investments vital to future economic growth. Today, with more wealth at America’s disposal than ever before, we are failing to make these commitments.
It was not always this way. Earlier generations faced far more pressing demands and found a way not only to sustain but also to expand the country’s roads, bridges, ports and schools. From groundbreaking investments such as universal education in the 19th century and the land grant schools that propelled advances in agriculture and technology, to the GI Bill that opened up college to working class Americans, to the National Highway System that connected a sprawling country, America has grown great on the strength of its national purpose. President John Kennedy’s pledge to send a man to the moon within a decade and our country’s success in doing so showed that America could lead the world in technology. And as recently as the 1990s, American leadership in developing information technologies and the Internet opened new markets and vistas for people everywhere. These investments were not inexpensive. But they paid for themselves many times over, creating the world’s wealthiest society.
Yet as we enter the 21st century, that sense of national purpose and pride, along with leadership in transportation, communications and education, all traditional hallmarks of American know-how, has diminished, as evidenced by our crumbling infrastructure. It is not a matter of whether we can afford the investments. Rather, it is a question of whether we can afford not to make them, given the key role that they play in economic growth and our nation’s daily life…”
You can read the rest of his paper here.
