Paul Krugman writes eloquently (here) of the “tragic waste”
we have subjected ourselves to over the past five years through a weak response
to the economic disaster – a waste of human resources through unnecessarily
high unemployment and a waste of opportunities for higher production and
growth.
I would just add that we can see that waste in high relief
in the transportation sector.
Krugman notes the “could have beens” that would have flowed
from a vigorous federal spending program – essentially an ongoing Stimulus over
five years. Just consider the
“could have beens” if the Transportation Stimulus had been carried forward each
year! The construction sector
would be in full recovery, the general economy would be reinvigorated, and
think of what could have been built!
We could have made a serious dent in the backlog of deficient legacy
infrastructure and even made a good start toward building a 21st
century transportation system.
(Remember how cheaply projects could be built at the bottom of the
economic slump?)
And – as I have often noted (see my 2010 presentation on the
subject here) – significantly ramped up transportation spending doesn’t have to
be a long-term deficit inducer.
The trick is to ramp up motor fuels taxes (that’s right) after ramping up spending, at a rate
linked to economic recovery. In
the long run, higher motor fuels taxes don’t burden the economy that much, and
if applied correctly, can encourage beneficial transportation decision making
while funding more transportation options for people.
As Paul Krugman notes, the political ingredients have not
been in place to support the kind of Stimulus that would have gotten us out of
the hole in a timely manner. The
same is certainly true of transportation spending, where even the meager amounts
of investment we are making now are funded on a hand-to-mouth basis. But, hey, we are still in the hole, so
why not start climbing out now?
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