Congress created the TIGER grant program in 2009 to help the economy recover: TIGER stands for “transportation investment generating economic recovery.” The economy has recovered — the United States is now enjoying what some call the “longest bull market in Wall Street history” — so President Trump called for ending TIGER.
The House agreed, but some in the Senate want to keep it going. Instead of killing it, Maine Senator Susan Collins, who claims to be a Republican, wants to expand it. Her justification is that the program received 585 applications from state and local governments last year but was able to fund just 44, which demonstrates “the need and popularity of this program.” I wonder if she knows of any programs that give away hundreds of millions of dollars a year that aren’t popular.
(She also opposes reform of the air traffic control system, which she calls “a solution in search of a problem.” Because airports aren’t congested in Maine, so she must imagine they aren’t congested anywhere else.)
Collins also thinks that TIGER is needed “given the poor condition of the nation’s infrastructure.” This is an example of mission creep: a program meant to promote economic recovery is now preserved to fix infrastructure.
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Even if that mission creep were valid, many if not most TIGER grants go for new (and often unnecessary) infrastructure, not for repairs or rehabilitation of existing infrastructure. For example, Atlanta is using TIGER funds to build a bus-rapid transit route; Arizona is building flyover ramps and roundabouts to relieve congestion on a state highway; and Philadelphia is building a bike path. Some of those might be good ideas, but they should be funded locally, not by federal taxpayers.
The Trump administration has at least been even-handed with its distribution of TIGER funds. Instead of giving most of the funds to states that voted for him, as Obama did, the 2017 grants were limited to one project per state. But members of Congress clearly see TIGER as a substitute for the earmarks they used to make for their states and districts — in other words, a way to generate publicity for themselves at other people’s expense.
Many in Congress say they want to pass legislation aimed at truly repairing and rebuilding infrastructure that is in poor shape, but unless funds are restricted to those uses, most of the money is likely to end up being spent on new projects we don’t really need and that local governments can’t afford to maintain. In the meantime, TIGER is a poor substitute for a real infrastructure bill and should be eliminated.
When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.
Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good. In area after area – crime, education, housing, race relations – the situation has gotten worse after the bright new theories were put into operation. The amazing thing is that this history of failure and disaster has neither discouraged the social engineers nor discredited them.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/142706-much-of-the-social-history-of-the-western-world-over
Didn’t the BUILD program already replace TIGER?
“Didn’t the BUILD program already replace TIGER?”
That’s what is supposed to happen. But nothing started in DC ever dies.
As President Reagan said: “Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth.”
Leftist response; Trump wants to eliminate Tigers………….