In a recent Op-Ed in the NYT, writer Bob Herbert regales us with the story of Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell who is evidently on a personal crusade to cure America’s infrastructure crisis. An advocate for increased investment in infrastructure, we are told that Rendell personally increased Pennsylvania’s infrastructure spending by roughly triple only to see the number of deficient bridges in the state increase by 7%. Herbert argues that the US is falling behind major competitors like China, and that failing to invest in infrastructure will put the US at a large-scale competitive disadvantage. In all, Herbert does a very good job of describing the problem and some of it potential impacts.
But he falls short in identifying actual solutions. He implies strongly that the problem falls on Washington and that with Congress focused on deficit reductions that the infrastructure issues he identifies so well will go unaddressed. In not identifying the solution, he has missed a major part of the problem: almost all infrastructure investment falls to the state and local level, and a huge portion of it is local rather than state funded. Infrastructure problems are well known and documented. Identifying those problems now is hardly news. The actual problem isn’t misunderstanding the issue or its consequences, the problem is coming up with the money to reinvest in dying infrastructure. Herbert correctly points out that the costs of doing so are enormous, but fails to point out that those costs are largely the responsibility of local governments who lack the financial resources and/or political will to address the massive costs. The problem is all about the money, and it’s not Washington money but City Hall money we are talking about.