John Berthoud has a great column in today's WSJ that echoes a point I made earlier: the problem with the federal government is not a lack of money:
All those dollars have not just gone to Iraq. The $286.5 billion highway bill is evidence that Washington is spending record amounts on infrastructure. And there's lots being lavished on all types of capital expenditures. The budget of the Army Corps of Engineers -- the federal agency tasked to help waterproof New Orleans -- is 31% higher today than it was 10 years ago. And as for state money, most Americans would probably consider it more appropriate for Louisiana and New Orleans taxpayers to fund their own infrastructure -- rather than taxpayers in, say, Wyoming or Maine. In Louisiana, real per capita spending rose by 59% from 1991 to 2002.
So government dollars at federal and state levels are plentiful. Post-Katrina questions, then, should focus not on how much government has been spending but on how it has been spending. Take Louisiana. In a February review of state governments, the Government Performance Project wrote: "The biggest problem area is infrastructure, and especially maintenance. Louisiana's attitude toward keeping up its physical assets over the years can best be described as determinedly negligent."
Those questions need to be asked of federal spending, too. The highway bill is a case study in spending money based on political prioritization, not economic or social need. Amid the 6,500 earmarks in that bill, Louisiana pols managed to sneak in $400,000 for the Mississippi River Trail and Bikepath and $3,200,000 for bike and pedestrian crossings of the Washington-Palmetto Canal. While the bill could be stretched to include bike paths for Louisiana, it apparently couldn't to include funding for levee construction.
I sort of know John so I emailed him to tell him that I liked the column. He emailed this back to me, which is interesting:
BTW, in today's WSJ item, I mentioned a study of state government operations. It’s really damning about LA government spending practices vis-à-vis infrastructure.:Here are some more excerpts (arguably even more powerful quotes than I used in my op-ed). In case anybody thinks this is a vast right wing conspiracy item, this research was funded by the Pew Charitable Trust::"As it stands, a great deal of capital spending seems to be allocated based on politics rather than need.":"Deferred maintenance is a tremendous problem, and the legislature is slow to spend money on fixing the problem. In some cases, even when it’s appropriated in the operating budget, agencies will tend to spend it on other things.":"the statewide capital planning is mainly based on the concept of each agencies getting its 'fair share' rather than prioritizing real needs. The state also lacks consistent criteria for prioritization among agencies’ projects and requests.":The urls are::
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