Infrastructure, taxes, and political profit

Hoping to not drive off my younger readers, I will admit that I am not a young man. When I was a young man, the concept of political legacy did not exist in its present form. In the now-distant past, a legacy was something you leave to your descendants. At the very least, it was something tangible handed down by a predecessor.

Today, a political legacy is often a political advantage handed down to your party or your party’s candidate by an outgoing holder of office. Back when we hadn’t heard much of the idea of a political legacy, we used to call these “boondoggles.” Webster defines a boondoggle as both a noun and a verb, describing the result or the process of wasting money on things that are made to appear useful but are not.

Two examples from my home venue, Albuquerque, NM, are the albatross known as Rail Runner Express, and the ironically named ART, which stands for Albuquerque Rapid Transit. Way too often, political legacies take the form of major infrastructure projects for which future generations will pay in taxes. These infrastructure projects are often ill-conceived and rushed to completion, so they can be ready before the end of the terms of office of the politicians who initiated them. In the case of both of the above, taxpayers of Albuquerque will be paying for them for decades, with no hope of either ever covering its fixed costs before both become derelicts that must be abandoned or replaced.

(ART Update: As of this writing, it is reported in the Albuquerque Journal that there are so many problems with the project that full implementation of the rapid-transit bus route, already two months behind its touted opening, will be delayed indefinitely. My dollars go bye-bye!)

Another example, from my former home state of Illinois, the The James R. Thompson Center, a state office building in Chicago built during the tenure of its namesake and rushed to completion with a radical atrium-style design, inadequately insulated windows, and inadequate heating and cooling systems. It’s open-balcony interior, some all the way up on the top floors and better suited to an Asian shopping mall, turned the main floor into a large marble target for suicides. It is only 38 years old, but will probably be torn down soon at a huge waste in taxpayer money.

So, what does this have to do with railroads? Overwhelmingly, since the beginning of the twenty-first century and the realization that rail transit, commuter rail, and high-speed rail can be valuable tools to stimulate the economy, boondoggles…oops! Sorry!...political legacy projects have been rail-related.

One such project is something called the Gateway Project. Amtrak is behind it, because it mostly involves construction of new tunnels under the Hudson River from New Jersey to Manhattan’s Penn Station. It should be called the Tunnel Project, as no actual Gateways will be involved. It has been in the news in the past week, because the Trump Administration, rightly, I might add, has decided it will not participate in funding the project at the fifty-percent level.

Why am I not 100 percent behind such a project, being a passenger rail advocate and such, and anyway Trump is such a douche? First, he’s not.

Second, this project is a boondoggle for nearly every American taxpayer. Mostly residents of New York and New Jersey will benefit, and there are demonstrably better ways to bring extra passenger rail access into Manhattan. If the two states want tunnels, then they can fund them from the taxes collected in their states, not saddle the rest of us with this burden.

Third, an all-weather bridge over the Hudson at approximately the same parallel would not be subject to Hurricane Sandy-like disasters. It was the flooding from Sandy that precipitated the urgency for tunnel replacement, and I do not see any engineering miracles on the horizon that would prevent the same from happening in new tunnels. While the left side of the political aisle rails about rising sea levels and climate change, they, at the same time, would have the rest of us spend billions on tunnels that will be most harmed by their predicted nasty weather.

Chuck Schumer, the multi-term Senator from New York, thinks that President Trump is punishing him for his constant whiny opposition, and he’s probably right. On the other hand, as Mr. Schumer has pointed out time and time again, the project, previously approved by the Obama administration, would benefit New York immeasurably. Chris Christie has said the same for New Jersey. And others have noted that fully 90 percent of the rail passengers using these tunnels will be from the adjacent states.

What about the rest of us? What do we get for our half of the project. The satisfaction, of course, the we have immeasurably helped New York and New Jersey with their infrastructure problems, while Mr. Schumer continues to oppose every other bit of infrastructure spending that the other side of the aisle proposes.

I get it, he represents New York. That’s just the point. He ONLY represents New York.

By the way, on the subject of a bridge, it was the exalted Mr. Obama who lamented time and time again about the United States not building any “amazing” infrastructure projects like the Golden Gate Bridge. Well, there you go! Mr. Schumer and his constituents should get out their wallets, wave them in front of a big picture of Mr. Obama, and start building that bridge to replace that aging tunnel system! I'm sure the dollars will miraculously start tumbling out.

Seriously, there are all sorts of ways to finance infrastructure. Liberals want to characterize most of these as gifts to the private sector, and, in a way, they are. Government, instead of providing taxpayer funds that don’t ever need to be paid back, provides property or franchises that can be taken back. The beneficiaries of these “gifts” aren’t going to make any money if the project is not completed, because the property becomes worthless or reverts to the government if the project fails. Incentives for private enterprise to construct infrastructure are not new, they just seem to be forgotten by the Washington establishment’s headlong rush to throw money, always money, at problems. Mr. Trump seems to get this; the establishment doesn't.

I don’t know how it all will end, but, I do know that the feds (you and me) paying for everything is not the answer.

©2018 – C. A. Turek – mistertrains@gmail.com

(Charles A. Turek is a writer and novelist based in Albuquerque, NM. After four decades working in areas of the insurance industry related to transportation, he now writes on all aspects of American railroading. Charles is a political conservative but believes in public funding of passenger rail as a part of the federal government’s constitutionally conservative obligation to provide for defense and public infrastructure so that private enterprise may flourish.)