James Freeman reminds us of the limits of infrastructure spending for stimulus:
The easiest project to start is a road through a strip of desert with no people and none of the wildlife deemed vulnerable by environmentalists. Yet even this kind of infrastructure lay-up would take three years from conception until the start of construction, according to an executive at a global firm that advises on such projects. Draw the proposed road to run through an urban area or environmentally sensitive terrain, or assume that negotiations are necessary to acquire land, and 36 months easily turns into seven years of planning before the project is ready for a shovel.
Want to build a bridge? Preparing to create such an economic stimulant requires at least five years, assuming no complications. Mr. Obama may dream of another New Deal-era of big public projects, but he may not fully appreciate the innovations that have occurred in the past three-quarters of a century. At all levels of government, techniques for delaying construction while making it more costly have rapidly advanced, especially in the area of environmental review. It’s possible that the massive Hoover Dam, completed in 1935, couldn’t even be built today. “Damming rivers is a very touchy subject now,” says our source, given the environmental concerns about impact on fish and other species.
This is one reason that America got so little new infrastructure out of the last stimulus. Re-paving existing roads, without offending any new constituencies, is one of the few activities that can be shovel-ready in a short time frame. And the well-publicized difficulties Team Obama had in finding “shovel-ready” projects for Stimulus I would only get worse in the sequel. In 2009 the feds were giving the money away. With a Republican House, the best that Mr. Obama can hope for is funding for his Banana Republic-style “infrastructure bank.”
Maybe not that ready. Remember the repaving of my little street I wrote about a couple of weeks ago? That should have been a two day job. Not including whatever planning went it the project, it began two weeks ago, it still isn’t done, and we haven’t seen a workman in a week.
I can think of all sorts of possible explanations for the lack of progress but the one thing I can’t think of is an explanation that is consistent with a “infrastructure spending as job creation” story.
This was a point that Arnold Kling, I and others pointed to prior to the passage of the stimulus bill…we were roundly criticized, insulted and demeaned…but in the end we were right and those opposed to us were wrong. Flat out wrong.
Hmmm, makes me think of Mancur Olson’s work on special interest groups and how they can retard economic growth.
The start-but-never-finish-paving-project is a new innovation in gub’ment revenue raising. When the workmen leave the partially finished job, the gub’ment simply waits for citizens to become frustrated enough to attempt to finish the job themselves, and the gub’ment immediately swoops in to write citations.
d(^_^)b
http://libertyatstake.blogspot.com/
“Because the Only Good Progressive is a Failed Progressiveâ€
Organizations and bureaucracies do not just over-build processes and create obstructions with the help of environmentalists.
They also become adept at conserving and preversing their work in order to reduce risk, creating order books and backlogs. Think of a doctor’s office. If the government gave a doctor $2 million to take on more patients, his first priority would be to add to his waiting list as opposed to hiring more nurses.
Therefore the chances that government stimulus sent to states would result in more hiring is dubious; it is much more likely that new or existing projects will now be added to the existing list, now fully funded by debt. The chances are even higher in infrastructure, since they are controlled by unions and future tax revenues to pay for more people are uncertain.
This is a link … http://detroitghettos.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/detroits-ghetto_07.jpg … to one of the many abandoned houses in Detroit. I doubt there would be any environmental objection to knocking it down and shipping it off to the landfill. I don’t think it would take a particularly well-trained crew. It would accomplish something useful, something that needs to be done. It could be done tomorrow.
There are different usages of the word “can”. Physically, that could be done. But politically it’s impossible. Neither Detroit nor Chicago nor New York nor any other major city executes projects that way. They let them out for notionally competitive bid among a clique of approved vendors. The winning vendor then schedules the project to fit into its schedule.
Doing anything else would bring down a hail of complaints and lawsuits on labor, safety, environmental, good government, and who know what other grounds.
michael, there would be an environmental objection if the house is not inspected for asbestos by a licensed professional or if asbestos is present, its disposed of by properly licensed asbestos contractors.
Lead, cadmium, mercury, PCBs. Cf. here. The licensing issues that PD notes, above.
Yes, that’s how it’s done. But it doesn’t have to be done that way. In fact state and local government could be reduced to playing bit parts. This could be a federal job. It is not beyond the range of possibility to imagine law that allowed localities to cede control in some cases to the feds. Nor is it impossible to pass laws loosening environmental controls in cases of federal jobs programs. Just throwing up our hands and pretending things are impossible is wrong — I don’t mean morally, but rationally. Laws made can be unmade. Regulations promulgated can be undone.
I do not believe if the feds offered to pay for 50,000 demolition and clearing and painting jobs in the Detroit area for a program that replaced dead blocks with parks that you’d see a whole lot of push-back from Detroit city government, or from Michigan.
The guys in Washington to whom you’re appealing have dedicated their whole careers to building the box, the web of environmental, labor, and safety regulations that are in place, you’re asking them to think outside of.
michael, Obama insisted on prevailing wages in the last stimulus that slowed everything down and reduced job creation. There is ample reason to waive such requirements in an unemployment crisis. There is a weaker case to be made for the federal government to waive public health and safety requirements.
BTW/ Not a new problem. The city in which I live ended up rejecting federal jobs money during the Great Depression because it was tied to federal regulatory requirements like prevailing wages. The city decided it could hire more people, more quickly with its own money.
BTW, I am not arguing that the problem is intractable. I am arguing that our president and Congressmen are incapable of doing anything for a combination of reasons of conviction and self-interest. We really need to throw the bums out. The problem is that there are so many more bums waiting in the wings.