National Infrastructure Projects

[crusader377]

This is a good editorial from the Washington Post on why the national infrastructure projects are often wasteful and inefficient.

The current administration is constantly pushing for more money for infrastructure but seldom answers the question on the economic value of the projects and do the projects make economic sense. In particular, they have been very agressive with urban light rail and intra-city rail projects which have consistantly lost money in every city or region that has built them.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/infrastructure-projects-to-fix-the-economy-dont-bank-on-it/2011/10/18/gIQAgtZi3L_story_2.html

[Belmont31R]

Around here they tore up roads they just completely rebuilt 2-3 years ago with curbs and planters and all that jazz. Brand new roads being used less than a year, and they tore them out to add another lane when they got stimulus money.




This is the problem when you just dole out Federal money to states and locals with strings attached. At the same time our school district is laying off special education teachers we are tearing our brand new finished roads to hire construction crews for a year. It is very inefficient because we have local dollars going to the Feds 1500 miles away who then send it back telling us how to spend it within our local community.



Central planning does not work well for most things, and the taxing authority should be reduced to the lowest level possible. We should not be getting Federal dollars to build local roads.