The Crumbling of America (Op-Ed)

[Flagg]

NY Times

America Goes Dark
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 8, 2010

The lights are going out all over America — literally. Colorado Springs has made headlines with its desperate attempt to save money by turning off a third of its streetlights, but similar things are either happening or being contemplated across the nation, from Philadelphia to Fresno.

Meanwhile, a country that once amazed the world with its visionary investments in transportation, from the Erie Canal to the Interstate Highway System, is now in the process of unpaving itself: in a number of states, local governments are breaking up roads they can no longer afford to maintain, and returning them to gravel.

And a nation that once prized education — that was among the first to provide basic schooling to all its children — is now cutting back. Teachers are being laid off; programs are being canceled; in Hawaii, the school year itself is being drastically shortened. And all signs point to even more cuts ahead.

We’re told that we have no choice, that basic government functions — essential services that have been provided for generations — are no longer affordable. And it’s true that state and local governments, hit hard by the recession, are cash-strapped. But they wouldn’t be quite as cash-strapped if their politicians were willing to consider at least some tax increases.

And the federal government, which can sell inflation-protected long-term bonds at an interest rate of only 1.04 percent, isn’t cash-strapped at all. It could and should be offering aid to local governments, to protect the future of our infrastructure and our children.

But Washington is providing only a trickle of help, and even that grudgingly. We must place priority on reducing the deficit, say Republicans and “centrist” Democrats. And then, virtually in the next breath, they declare that we must preserve tax cuts for the very affluent, at a budget cost of $700 billion over the next decade.

In effect, a large part of our political class is showing its priorities: given the choice between asking the richest 2 percent or so of Americans to go back to paying the tax rates they paid during the Clinton-era boom, or allowing the nation’s foundations to crumble — literally in the case of roads, figuratively in the case of education — they’re choosing the latter.

It’s a disastrous choice in both the short run and the long run.

In the short run, those state and local cutbacks are a major drag on the economy, perpetuating devastatingly high unemployment.

It’s crucial to keep state and local government in mind when you hear people ranting about runaway government spending under President Obama. Yes, the federal government is spending more, although not as much as you might think. But state and local governments are cutting back. And if you add them together, it turns out that the only big spending increases have been in safety-net programs like unemployment insurance, which have soared in cost thanks to the severity of the slump.

That is, for all the talk of a failed stimulus, if you look at government spending as a whole you see hardly any stimulus at all. And with federal spending now trailing off, while big state and local cutbacks continue, we’re going into reverse.

But isn’t keeping taxes for the affluent low also a form of stimulus? Not so you’d notice. When we save a schoolteacher’s job, that unambiguously aids employment; when we give millionaires more money instead, there’s a good chance that most of that money will just sit idle.

And what about the economy’s future? Everything we know about economic growth says that a well-educated population and high-quality infrastructure are crucial. Emerging nations are making huge efforts to upgrade their roads, their ports and their schools. Yet in America we’re going backward.

How did we get to this point? It’s the logical consequence of three decades of antigovernment rhetoric, rhetoric that has convinced many voters that a dollar collected in taxes is always a dollar wasted, that the public sector can’t do anything right.

The antigovernment campaign has always been phrased in terms of opposition to waste and fraud — to checks sent to welfare queens driving Cadillacs, to vast armies of bureaucrats uselessly pushing paper around. But those were myths, of course; there was never remotely as much waste and fraud as the right claimed. And now that the campaign has reached fruition, we’re seeing what was actually in the firing line: services that everyone except the very rich need, services that government must provide or nobody will, like lighted streets, drivable roads and decent schooling for the public as a whole.

So the end result of the long campaign against government is that we’ve taken a disastrously wrong turn. America is now on the unlit, unpaved road to nowhere.
A version of this op-ed appeared in print on August 9, 2010, on page A19 of the New York edition.

Fucking pathetic.

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

It is, it really is. I see some of the things in that article every day, particularly the roads. A fair number of the roads in my area have to be repaved every year or two, thanks to the magic of longwall mining*, and the trend recently has been to lay down tar and chips instead asphalt, to save money.

*Consol Energy longwalls under the roads (and everything else), which are then destroyed by mine subsidence, then leaves the taxpayers to pay for the repairs. Thank you, Consol.

[Broomstick]

Merrillville, Indiana turned off HALF its streetlights last year... but I guess no one noticed.

[Temujin]

I've recently been thinking about what a farce this situation is, again.* Richest most economically and militarily powerful country on the planet, yet every aspect of our infrastructure is crumbling, often with only half ass patch jobs to sustain it.

Then of course there's the social programs, or lack thereof. In a country where no one should want for lack of health care, education, etc; what essential services that do exist have also long been circling the drain.

At this point I'm left wonder just how long before something really snaps in this country.


*I say again as I've argued theses points with rather oblivious people for decades, and literally since I was a kid.

[Broomstick]

At this point I'm left wonder just how long before something really snaps in this country.

Me, too.

Actually, I've been wondering that for over ten years. During the boom-boom-boom I was all too aware there would be a bust. Now that the bust is here...

Well, it all depends on just how uncomfortable people get. If the masses can be kept both fed and mollified this mess could go on a long, long while. If those on top are short-sighted enough to render the masses homeless and starving it could get quite... ugly.

>sigh<

[Knife]

I figured, and I guess wrongly, that the mantra that has gripped this country for decades of tax cuts tax cuts tax cuts would actually be looked at seriously and at length when you get to the point where fucking streetlights are being turned off. Around where I live, there was a brief and honest discussion where as a lot of people were going to the school board and saying 'tax me more' because they were laying off teachers and just not enough to pay for schools.

It was short, small, but there. People beginning to realize, at least at a local level, that their tax money does go somewhere and does something that affects them. I hope it grows but we will see.

[StarshipTitanic]

Is crumbling infrastructure really a nation-wide problem or is it concentrated in the areas where anti-government nuts concentrate (rural areas, the South)? Where I live, I'm seeing the most road work I've ever seen in my life on everything from local sidewalks to interstates. A lot of the projects have Recovery and Reinvestment Act signs, too.

I can see the squeeze in my local schools and libraries, though.

[Knife]

Well, while we still have free way work being done, the building of new roads is way behind. They are just now putting in a commuter lane from down town SLC along the major corridors north and south. We had an epic battle a couple years ago to get another highway/freeway built that would run north and relieve congestion on the only other main north route, but were hampered by econuts, now after years and millions of dollars we have a 14 mile stretch of road that dumps back into the main north route.

Local governments let developers go hog wild with new houses, now we have massive suburbs with the original two lane farm roads as major roads moving in and out of them, still can't get poh-dunk community A to coordinate with cooter in poh-dunk B to coordinate their lights with each other so traffic isn't stopped at every single light.

And that's just roads. We haven't had a new power plant proposed, or anything like that.

[Broomstick]

Is crumbling infrastructure really a nation-wide problem or is it concentrated in the areas where anti-government nuts concentrate (rural areas, the South)?

Yes, it really is a nationwide problem - and has been for decades.

Where I live, I'm seeing the most road work I've ever seen in my life on everything from local sidewalks to interstates. A lot of the projects have Recovery and Reinvestment Act signs, too.

Right - that's because the Obama administration funded infrastructure repairs as part of the stimulus. Meaning, those dollars had to be used for infrastructure repairs, they couldn't be diverted in pay raises for politicians or funding retirement funds - or funding for teacher's salaries.

There actually is a bill currently up for a vote that would provide some funding for schools and teachers, but the Republicans (predictably) are trying to kill it.

[Temujin]

Is crumbling infrastructure really a nation-wide problem or is it concentrated in the areas where anti-government nuts concentrate (rural areas, the South)?

It's literally everywhere and everything:

• *Roads
  *Bridges
  *Tunnels
  *Sewage and Water Pipes
  *The entire power grid
  *And a lot of buildings and other structures

Where I live, I'm seeing the most road work I've ever seen in my life on everything from local sidewalks to interstates. A lot of the projects have Recovery and Reinvestment Act signs, too.

Sadly, often times the work can be patch jobs due to limited funds or because they can't do the real level of work that needs to be done because it would entail closing something like a bridge down completely for a long period of time causing shit loads of disruption to commuting patterns.

Thankfully some, like Obama, recognize that we have to start doing someting before it's too late. Unfornately, as Broomstick pointed out, the usual suspects are in the way.

[General Zod]

Is crumbling infrastructure really a nation-wide problem or is it concentrated in the areas where anti-government nuts concentrate (rural areas, the South)? Where I live, I'm seeing the most road work I've ever seen in my life on everything from local sidewalks to interstates. A lot of the projects have Recovery and Reinvestment Act signs, too.

I can see the squeeze in my local schools and libraries, though.

On the other hand my state has one of the best public transportation networks in the midwest and we still have to beg the Feds for money to get another light-rail corridor built.

[StarshipTitanic]

Is crumbling infrastructure really a nation-wide problem or is it concentrated in the areas where anti-government nuts concentrate (rural areas, the South)?

Yes, it really is a nationwide problem - and has been for decades.

My intention was to question the difference in severity between areas of the country but I can see how I wasn't clear.

Where I live, I'm seeing the most road work I've ever seen in my life on everything from local sidewalks to interstates. A lot of the projects have Recovery and Reinvestment Act signs, too.

Right - that's because the Obama administration funded infrastructure repairs as part of the stimulus. Meaning, those dollars had to be used for infrastructure repairs, they couldn't be diverted in pay raises for politicians or funding retirement funds - or funding for teacher's salaries.

Thanks for explaining, complete with patronizing italics, the connection between those mysterious signs and the construction projects going on next to them. Because I clearly wasn't remarking on the apparent local effectiveness of stimulus money or anything.

Sadly, often times the work can be patch jobs due to limited funds or because they can't do the real level of work that needs to be done because it would entail closing something like a bridge down completely for a long period of time causing shit loads of disruption to commuting patterns.

Thankfully some, like Obama, recognize that we have to start doing someting before it's too late. Unfornately, as Broomstick pointed out, the usual suspects are in the way.

Thanks for raising a good point and one I hadn't considered. In the mid to late 90s we got a lot of completely new overpasses, for example, but I haven't seen something of that scale in the newer work. To my untrained eye, it looks impressive but it might all be patches.

On the other hand my state has one of the best public transportation networks in the midwest and we still have to beg the Feds for money to get another light-rail corridor built.

This is why I was curious about how severe the problem is in different parts of the country. In areas built around the automobile, road maintenance and expansion is obviously a big issue and public transportation has to start from scratch. I live on the east coast where public transportation has been built up for over a century.

[Ziggy Stardust]

This is why I was curious about how severe the problem is in different parts of the country. In areas built around the automobile, road maintenance and expansion is obviously a big issue and public transportation has to start from scratch. I live on the east coast where public transportation has been built up for over a century.

There definitely are parts of the country that aren't being hit as severely. I know here in Rhode Island, the unemployment rate dropped, and the state did a good job of dealing with the shantytowns that had grown up around the Moshassuck River. In terms of infrastructure, a number of projects were put into overdrive, including the I-Way and the bridges on Route 114 (the latter had been stalled for TEN FUCKING YEARS, and it was only in the past year that money/management came in to finish the damned things). Even the schools aren't being hit that bad (with the exception of Central Falls).

[Big Phil]

Is crumbling infrastructure really a nation-wide problem or is it concentrated in the areas where anti-government nuts concentrate (rural areas, the South)? Where I live, I'm seeing the most road work I've ever seen in my life on everything from local sidewalks to interstates. A lot of the projects have Recovery and Reinvestment Act signs, too.

I can see the squeeze in my local schools and libraries, though.

Chicken Little aside, the answer is two fold:

1. Infrastructure has been neglected nationwide for a long time. Bridges, roads, power grids, etc., are all in dire need of upgrade, like Temujin said. At the same time, in the Seattle area, there are lots of new construction projects going on, light rail upgrades, etc. However, money for maintenance (as opposed to new construction) is limited, and many potholes are going unfilled while new highways are being constructed just next door.

2. The problem is worse in places where people don't want to pay taxes and where the economy is doing especially badly. Seattle is relatively better off than places like Colorado Springs, in part because of taxes, but also because the economy is just in better shape. Seattle, New York, Chicago, etc., are residential and business centers; Colorado Springs is... not.

[Edi]

It's also as bad as it is now, because regular maintenance is a lot cheaper than massive repairs after things have gotten too damaged.

If it takes 1 dollar to fix something now, it may well cost 100 dollars in today's money if you start fixing that same thing five years from now if it degrades significantly in important places. This is what nearly happened with my apartment block's balconies, they were surveyed 5 years ago and the assumption was that degradation would not be significant, but it turned out that waiting just one more year would have necessitated an entire replacement repair, which would have cost five times as much.

Preventive maintenance is fucking important, but unfortunately it's not an eyecatcher and therefore also not good for election PR. So it gets neglected and later on everybody pays through the nose when it can't be put off anymore.

[Kanastrous]

It's outside the scope of the article but I wonder how much of this is thanks to a large voting block of millenarian religious types who could care less about maintaining, paving, or improving anything because after all they're soon going to be enraptured at which point infrastructure - in fact, every aspect of running a nation from start to finish - becomes irrelevant. It's tough to sell the importance of infrastructure maintenance to people who are convinced that maybe within the next few minutes they're going to be in heaven looking down at it all burning, anyway.

[Guardsman Bass]

I thought this bit from a blog post on the column might be interesting, although I don't entirely agree with it:

. . .

Now let’s move on to the paved roads conundrum. Krugman uses the pavement problem as a guiding analogy for the rest of his column, but doesn’t go into much more detail. For instance, he doesn’t mention that the most common type of asphalt used to pave roads is petroleum asphalt, and that petroleum asphalt prices have skyrocketed. In some states, the price of asphalt has actually doubled since 2008. This is central to the decision by some counties and localities deciding to let dilapidated roads go to gravel. Far from the failure in the social contract which Krugman makes it out to be, these are hard decisions being made by local governments in places where not only the government itself is strapped for cash, but people working outside of government face their own belt-tightening. Perhaps raising taxes to pay for expensive pavement on rural roads is simply not the best priority in the middle of a recession.

Nor am I arguing against government paying for roads. We need roads, obviously. The economy would go to gravel without them. Nevertheless, perhaps people concerned with the environment should consider the environmental implications of maintaining our current infrastructure. Petroleum asphalt doesn’t just eat up oil for its own production, it facilitates the use of gas guzzling cars. Forward thinkers might take this opportunity to begin looking harder at alternative transportation options, though admittedly the rural areas in question will be a ways down on the list when it comes to passenger rail. Again, this isn’t quite as simple as just raising taxes. Oil, I imagine, isn’t going to get cheaper any time soon. Priorities have to be made.

. . . .

[Broomstick]

However, the cost of new asphalt is offset by improved technologies in recycling asphalt. In fact, there are machines that basically chew off the top layer of a road, grind it up, melt it down, and then extrude it out the back as a new layer of pavement (I've seen them in operation - my area has had them for years). Of course, this won't work on entirely new road, won't work for certain types of repairs, and the system is not 100% efficient so some new asphalt will need to be added, but if 80-90% of a roadbed is recycled, well, that does cut costs, particularly if it can be recycled on-site. Of course, running such machines still takes money.

[Commander 598]

Behold, the glorious new and quite lengthy bridge over Lake Bistineau as well as the obsolete and partially demolished former bridge. I am critical of this bit of infrastructure because, while the old bridge was a piece of shit, it was also less than 1/4th the length of the new one, and also because the road/highway they modified when they did this to accommodate the new bridge does not have a lot of traffic going down it.

Meanwhile, Highway 371 is an absolute pile of shit (always has been to a degree) and deals with quite a bit of traffic including numerous big heavy trucks.

About the only reason not to just build a new bridge over the old one is because of the dam sitting literally right next to it, but it's both not really very big and may get replaced soon anyway.

I personally think some pockets got lined.

Essentially, what I'm saying, is that your infrastructure money is being inefficiently spent on big shiny things while stuff that really needs work is ignored.

[Alyrium Denryle]

You are in LA. Can't you just assume someone's pockets got lined for... pretty much everything?

[Commander 598]

I usually do.

[Kanastrous]

Man, it looks like they use the same set of plans for every bridge in Louisiana...

[Thanas]

When I was driving through the USA five years ago, I noticed bridges that were in such a disrepair that they would be fixed in Europe or people would scream bloody murder. But people were using them as major traffic lanes...

[Kanastrous]

Cuz Europeans are sissyfied and spoiled. Real Americans *like* an element of danger in their roads and bridges.

[Thanas]

Yeah, turned out one of those bridges collapsed two years later, killing 7.