lahgic

@50bmg - there's a ton of studies that show direct and convincing correlation between infrastructure and long-term economic benefits. Key term being "long term." The best infrastructure with the highest ROI requires long term planning which is problematic in today's political environment where they want (need?) to show immediate results. Hence asphalt overlay galore and very little for long term investment in areas like ports.

@HillStaffThrowAway - my problem with the pushing for "infrastructure investment" is that it is always leveraged for stimulus and then spent elsewhere. Obama's stimulus bill - overwhelmingly sold as an investment in infrastructure. Reality, less than 10% went there. That's maddening. Then you have cities like Charlotte NC. A great opportunity for a hub/spoke arrangement given the urban job center and existing rail corridors from being an old industrial center. Good investment. Then the city pursues a street car that is a horrible special-interest laden "investment." They kill public support of legitimate projects with pursuit of wasteful projects. Two examples of politics being the problem. If we left funding to local and state then there would be more direct accountability for expenditure of funds. I'm quite familiar with full funding grant agreements with the FTA and while I like to see beneficial investments in infrastructure. Charlotte would not pursue the street car because they would need to carry the full burden of a project that doesn't meet the metrics to validate such an investment. I see the redistribution model leveraging federal $ to be a big part of the problem. It turns into a fight about which Congress members are bringing what percentage of their constituencies originating tax revenue back to the area. The projects inevitably are less valid (bridges to nowhere, overbuilt airports - Murtha, etc) and they become tremendously inefficient somewhat boondoggles with diminishing returns (Big Dig - a great project that was drastically overpaid for and mismanaged). The federal government is the problem. I have 20 years experience working in this arena and I see tremendous room for improvement and it starts with local and state governments reclaiming their autonomy. You eluded to this earlier when referencing local action as allowing for more creativity. There's a reason the DC area has blown up in the last 25 years and it's NOT a good reason. A government too centralized eliminates the real benefit of diversity - which is an aggregate of many ideas. That is the whole premise behind states as laboratories. We seem to be deliberately denying our country of that tremendous asset by swallowing it with our ever growing, bureaucratically stymied, intellectually and creatively bankrupt, corrupt federal government. Beyond national security - I wish DC was irrelevant. You went to school for polisci? Politics was intended a temporary civic duty - not a career focus. #partoftheproblem

Yeah - engineers like myself could tell you that it was a joke before it happened. That wasn't negligence. That was willful negligence. There's no way that people like me knew it was flawed before it passed but DC didn't know. It was a way to push through stimulus loaded with social spending while calling it something else.

I believe earmarks are sometimes positive. There are projects that have tremendous merit but it's hard to quantify thereby eliminating it from metrics driven funding mechanisms. Another justification for dropping the "send money to us, we'll evaluate your projects, and possibly send some back to you" model employed by the feds. It leaves accountability to the people most affected by the decisions. They're also the ones best positioned to evaluate the true impacts of those projects. There are success stories for federal funding but they serve as false sense of success. Given the enormity of the federal government it is easy to find successes. However when looking at the overall hit rate for success in that model it starts to look like George Costanza's dating record - abysmal. But! There was that time he made it to a rave with hot women at a converted meat packing plant. Yup - false sense of success.

I lived in noVA for years and worked as an infrastructure consultant. I've had several dinners at Murphy's in Alexandria with people like Hyde's (now deceased) former chief of staff. I've been to multiple meetings at Rayburn with people like Oberstar (no longer in Congress) to discuss infrastructure (TEA 21, SAFETEA etc) policy as an individual and as part of a contingent from ASCE. I'm very familiar with the political process. To me it's a town full of "ends justifies the means" people. Be-it people with policy goals for social change (Obama-types), those with personal ambitions with philosophies being secondary (Robert Rubin's of the world), and those who are just trying to squeak out a living with little worry as to what they're actually contributing (most staffers / cogs). If my sole concern in life was just to make a living then I'd probably head home immediately and canoe my head with a .45. I make a living while doing something that contributes significantly to improving peoples' lives without transgressing on their liberties. What you may see as someone on a moral high horse is viewed as simply common sense to people like me.

Regarding the hypocrisy of the luxuries we afford in this country that is contingent on maintaining the poverty of others elsewhere to continue these levels of creature comforts - I'm well aware. However - I'm not an advocate of relativism. Meaning - just because there are areas of my life that I have little control over that results in those inequities does not mean I will relax my standards in other areas of my life where I have greater control. Maybe that's where people like you and I can't relate. I prefer to recognize the hypocrisy and not allowing the slippery slope to affect other decisions where my personal decisions can have more positive affects. I find our political system absolutely abhorrent. Being better than most of our competitors (other nations) doesn't mean we're good. It's just means we're relatively better. Again - there's problems with relativity.

I understand you don't want to be a recipient of anger. However, don't you think you contribute to the problems by engaging in, and profiting from, the system? I've talked with many financial industry people who are nice people with good intentions but they have been so conditioned in believing what they do carries more social utility than it actually does that they're entirely incapable of objective assessment of the value - or even worse, purpose - of their role. I see politicians and those who engage in that spectrum as very similar. They have extremely inflated views of their roles. I'm an engineer and it bothers me intensly to hear politicians - mostly attorneys - talk about STEM careers when they have zero clue on the subject. Zero. When Obama recently said the Dem's are doing "God's work" it reminded me of Blankenfein's testimony on Capital Hill where he said exactly the same statement. They're - financial industry and political class (politicians and career political engagers) - cut from the same cloth. Do you see the similarity?