What’s Conservative about Big Government?

Continued and increased federal funding of highways and transit is vitally important, says Jack Schenendorf in a paper titled, The Case Against Transportation Devolution. Devolving transportation to the states “would conflict with the nation’s long and unbroken history of federal transportation investment, balkanize the nation’s transportation networks, cause a substantial drag on the economy, and bring about a host of other serious problems.”

Schenendorf may be a Republican, but that doesn’t make him a conservative, at least not in the fiscal sense. He was the chief of staff for the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee from 1995 to 2001. Those happen to be the years when committee chair Bud Shuster (R-PA) made himself known as “one of the most shameless promulgators of pork-barrel spending in all of Congress.” Shuster has all sorts of highways, museums, and buildings named after him throughout his district and state, and he paved the way for his son, Bill, to take his seat when he retired. Today Bill also chairs the House T&I Committee.

Also during those years, Congress passed the 1998 transportation bill, TEA-21, which happened to be the first law that mandated increased spending every year even if revenues did not keep up. While that only became a problem in 2007, it is the main reason why Congress is gridlocked today. In other words, Schenendorf is part of the reason why the federal transportation funding process has broken down.

Schenendorf’s “conservative case” for federal transportation funding basically comes down to “transportation is important so the federal government ought to fund it.” His Constitutional case rests on the provision that allows Congress to fund the “post office and post roads” and to regulate interstate commerce. He doesn’t say just how urban light-rail lines that don’t carry mail or cross state lines fit in with either of these provisions.

He argues that Congress began funding various road projects as early as 1802. What he doesn’t say is that federal transportation funding played, at most, a tiny role in the nation’s transportation network until 1956, when Congress created the Interstate Highway System. Moreover, much of what Congress did fund before that time turned out to be a failure.

For example, private railroads built more than 250,000 miles of rail lines in this country, of which the federal government subsidized less than 19,000. Nearly all of the railroads that make up that 19,000 miles ended up going bankrupt because they were built to get the subsidies, not to provide transportation. This meant they were poorly built into territories that offered little or no business for the railroads to carry. With little or no federal help, the builders of the other 230,000 miles of rail lines managed to connect their rails together and develop standards for exchanging cars and locomotives.
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The federal government also funded the National Road, which was supposed to go from Washington to St. Louis. The road was never really completed and it was poorly maintained, while far more miles of private tollroads built during that era were relatively well maintained. During the automobile era from 1900 to 1956, the states managed to get their highways to meet at the borders and use common standards so that cars and trucks can travel between states with little or no help from the federal government.

The Interstate Highway System was a great success, but almost everything the federal government has done since then has been one more failure after another. Amtrak and in particular urban transit have turned into huge money pits that provide little return to taxpayers or the traveling public. America’s transit systems were mostly private and, overall, earned a profit up through the mid-1960s. After the federal government began funding transit, it turned into a huge loser, now costing taxpayers some $40 billion a year despite carrying fewer trips per capita than it did in 1960 or 1970.

“Federal investment in transportation infrastructure fosters national prosperity and the common good by directing funds and expertise to the most strategically important bridges, highways, and transit systems,” claims Schenendorf. “Devolution, in contrast, would drive us apart as a nation and lead to precisely the sorts of inefficiencies the Constitution’s Framers sought to eliminate.”

In fact, what we know about federal funding is that Congress would rather fund capital improvements than maintenance, so much of the infrastructure Congress has funded is in poor shape. We also know that much of it was unimportant either strategically or in any other sense. Just how strategically important are the Norfolk Tide light rail, Orlando’s SunRail, Nashville’s Music City Star, or Portland’s Westside Express, all of which carry so few riders that it would have been less expensive to give every daily roundtrip rider a new Toyota Prius every year for the next 30 years?

We also know that private rail systems and state highway systems brought Americans together for more than 150 years before Congress seriously intervened in transportation by funding interstate highways. Moreover, we know why the interstates were successful, while so many other federal transportation programs were not: unlike the Transcontinental Railroad, the National Road, Amtrak, and light-rail lines, the interstates were funded out of user fees and built on a pay-as-you-go basis (meaning they were only built if users really valued them).

Far from being a conservative, at least when it comes to transportation, Schenendorf is a tax-and-spend liberal, seeking to spend more money on transportation projects that will never pay for themselves. A major advantage of devolution is that most states can’t afford to waste money on ridiculously expensive transportation projects, so they’ll normally focus on projects that can pay for themselves unless the federal government gives them incentives to do otherwise. In short, what Schenendorf fails to recognize is that devolution means more projects will meet the market test than if the federal government continues to scatter money to the winds.

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About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

5 Responses to What’s Conservative about Big Government?

  1. FrancisKing says:

    Antiplanner wrote: “For example, private railroads built more than 250,000 miles of rail lines in this country, of which the federal government subsidized less than 19,000. ”

    The transcontinental railroads were subsidised with huge chunks of free land along the route.

    Antiplanner wrote: “In short, what Schenendorf fails to recognize is that devolution means more projects will meet the market test than if the federal government continues to scatter money to the winds.”

    The projects should be devolved to the lowest practical level. The Interstate roads at Federal level, major state roads at state level, and the majority of roads at the local level.

    Antiplanner wrote: “America’s transit systems were mostly private and, overall, earned a profit up through the mid-1960s. After the federal government began funding transit, it turned into a huge loser, now costing taxpayers some $40 billion a year despite carrying fewer trips per capita than it did in 1960 or 1970.”

    Is that because they were nationalised, and hence they made losses – or because they made losses and hence they were nationalised?

  2. C. P. Zilliacus says:

    FrancisKing wrote:

    The projects should be devolved to the lowest practical level. The Interstate roads at Federal level, major state roads at state level, and the majority of roads at the local level.

    This makes sense, though it is important to note that there are roads that are not on the Interstate network but are on the (larger) National Highway System (NHS) which are nationally important.

    That would be where I would concentrate the spending of federal highway user revenues if someone asked me (and they have not).

    Is that because they were nationalised, and hence they made losses – or because they made losses and hence they were nationalised?

    A lot of them were in bad physical shape for an assortment of reasons by the 1960’s, stemming in part from flight from many U.S. urban areas – but also because many U.S. transit systems (even then) suffered from plenty of “deferred maintenance.” Labor unions representing transit workers were also generally enthusiastic about their members transitioning from employment with private-sector transit companies to public-sector transit authorities.

  3. JOHN1000 says:

    If they want the feds to keep financial control, there should be one simple restriction, to be in effect for at least three to five years.
    No funds can be used for any new projects; all funds must be used solely for maintenance and repairs of existing roads, bridges, etc.
    Any funds not spent in that manner would go into a fund for future projects which cannot be started for the 3 to 5 year period. “Started” includes no money for planning, design, promoting-nothing.

  4. C. P. Zilliacus says:

    The Antiplanner wrote:

    We also know that private rail systems and state highway systems brought Americans together for more than 150 years before Congress seriously intervened in transportation by funding interstate highways.

    I must respectfully disagree in part, though I suspect that The Antiplanner might agree with my dissent.

    Long before the first spade of dirt was turned for the Interstates, excessive and heavy-handed economic regulation imposed by Congress via the Interstate Commerce Commission did the railroads no favors (though it seems pretty clear that the railroads treated their (rural) customers badly, owing at least in part due to the monopoly that railroads had over transportation services in the 19th and early 20th centuries).

  5. MJ says:

    Devolving transportation to the states “would conflict with the nation’s long and unbroken history of federal transportation investment, balkanize the nation’s transportation networks, cause a substantial drag on the economy, and bring about a host of other serious problems.”

    The first of those is not really an argument at all, but an appeal that “we should keep doing it this way because that’s the way we’ve always done it”. Not convincing. The other three have neither evidence not merit to support them.

    Schenendorf is a disgrace.

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