Last week, Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey made a tough decision. Faced with the near-certainty of 20% to 50% cost overruns, and with no source of funds to cover them, he canceled the $9 billion ARC “tunnel to Macy’s basement” that would have doubled rail capacity between New
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Jersey and Manhattan. His rationale was pretty simple, and ultimately sensible: don’t throw the taxpayers of New Jersey “under the tunnel,” and stick them with tab for the project’s cost overruns. Given the propensity for government public works projects to be horribly managed, and the strong possibility of another Big Dig-type financial fiasco, Christie took the courageous, but unpopular, route and did the right thing.
To hear some liberal columnists describe it, it’s the end of the American dream, and the end of the world as we know it. They have moaned at great length about the “horrible policy” and the shortsightedness of such a terrible decision. Christie, in their minds, just doesn’t get it. America is supposed to be able to do these kinds of massive public works projects with one hand tied behind its back. Why, we could put thousands of unemployed construction workers back on the payroll by doing this tunnel project. I think these guys are missing Christie’s point: it’s somebody else’s money, and I’m not going to spend it without their permission.
Bob Herbert thinks canceling the ARC Tunnel is bad policy, and hey, we’re not trying to go to the moon, just build a tunnel – hell, the Chinese and the Turks could do it.
One day after Governor Christie made his devastating announcement about the tunnel, the U.S. Labor Department released its latest unemployment statistics. They show that the nation remains locked in an employment crisis, unable to provide work for millions who want and need it. One of the major potential solutions to this crisis is all around us. America’s infrastructure is indisputably in sorry shape, and upgrading it to meet the needs of the 21st century is far and away the best strategy for putting people back to work.
The railroad tunnel project, all set and ready to go, would have provided jobs for 6,000 construction workers, not to mention all the residual employment that accompanies such projects. What we’ll get instead, if it is not built, is the increased pollution and worsening traffic jams that result when tens of thousands of commuters who would have preferred to take the train are redirected to their automobiles.
All the benefits that Herbert describes would probably be great for the folks in New York and New Jersey. Governor Christie had the temerity to actually investigate the cost issues, and the moral courage and backbone to stand by his promise to the taxpayers: no new taxes. For him to allow the ARC Tunnel project to proceed would be tantamount to promising a tax increase to the citizens of New Jersey. To Herbert and his liberal-blogger buddies, this isn’t forthright and circumspect financial management – it’s foolhardy and irresponsible. But he misses the point:
It’s someone else’s money.
An interesting aside here: I did a little research on cost overruns for government-managed projects. The evidence is pretty horrifying: half of them overrun their budget by at least 25%, and some are orders of magnitude worse. Here’s a sampling:
By the way, the projects that these columnists invoke as evidence of the lost greatness of America? Yep, they were over budget. It is the Tragedy of the Commons, writ extremely large. Government contractors always get their pay, even when they terribly mismanage projects, because there’s a perceived bottomless pit of – you guessed it: Someone else’s money
Paul Krugman, one of my favorite wailing liberal columnists, invokes the spirit of great public works projects of the past, like the Erie Canal, the Hoover Dam, and the Interstate Highway system to make his point: aside from the short-sighted nature of the decision, it’s an extension of his argument that we haven’t spent nearly enough money on economic stimulus:
So this was a terrible, shortsighted move from New Jersey’s point of view. But that’s not the whole cost. Canceling the tunnel was also a blow to national hopes of recovery, part of a pattern of penny-pinching that has played a large role in our continuing economic stagnation.
When people ask why the Obama stimulus didn’t accomplish more, one good response is to ask, what stimulus? Leaving aside the cost of financial rescues and safety-net programs like unemployment insurance, federal spending has risen only modestly — and this rise has been largely offset by cutbacks at the state and local level. Many of these cuts were forced by Congress, which has refused to approve adequate aid to the states. But as Mr. Christie is demonstrating, local politicians are also doing their part.
And the ideology that has led Mr. Christie to undermine his state’s future is, of course, the same ideology that has led almost all Republicans and some Democrats to stand in the way of any meaningful action to revive the nation’s economy. Worse yet, next month’s election seems likely to reward Republicans for their obstructionism.
Waah. Federal spending has only risen modestly – I suppose P Krug would be okay with having a $20 trillion deficit, or maybe $50 trillion. Why not? We have to spend lots of money to get us out of the economic slump we’re in say Krugman and the Keynesians (sounds like a really bad band). Krugman is the king of missing the point, with his weekly rants about the puny stimulus:
Paul: It’s somebody else’s money.
Last, but not least, Nigel Hamilton piles on, saying we’re headed down the toilet of history, like the Roman Empire. Using Herbert’s eulogy for the ‘nation that used to do great things’ as a launching pad, Hamilton characterizes Christie’s actions as part of the “lack of vision” in America. Stupid American people in flyover country just aren’t giving proper creedence to the visionary leadership that’s occupying the throne in D. C. right now. No surprise there, this guy’s presidential superhero was FDR, who made an art of spending collosal amounts of taxpayer dollars to do whatever. He thinks (surprise) that Obama (DfOaLG*) is our modern-day FDR:
Now, I am probably in a dwindling majority of people who consider Barack Obama to be the FDR of the twenty-first century: a
thoughtful, visionary President who is bringing us through the worst recession since the Great Depression, and who is dealing with America’s global problems with enormous patience and tenacity. But if so, where are the members of Congress who, in 1942, pulled together to support not only the elected president of the United States, but stood collectively behind his vision of America’s place in a post-war world? Where are the journalists willing to look beyond the scandals of the day, and communicate the larger picture to the electorate by giving space, reports, interviews and a historical perspective to the situation in which we find ourselves today?
Why, yes, Nigel – you’re exactly right. He is this generation’s FDR – much to our collective chagrin. I doubt seriously that a “majority of people” consider Obama to be anything more than a pretty sorry former community organizer who was steered into the presidency by some pretty crafty people. His “leadership” is what is pointing us toward the crapper. This November, we’ll short-circuit his economy-crushing body of work, and then, in 2012, flush him down the toilet.
The thing, once again, that messieurs Herbert, Krugman, and Hamilton miss is this: FDR did and Obama wants to do grand things, and “exercise moral (cough) courage and wisdom” in making our nation great – they’re just intent on doing it with massive sums of someone else’s money. Maggie Thatcher once famously described the fault of their agenda : “The problem with Socialism is you eventually run out of other people’s money [to spend]”
One more time: It’s someone else’s money!
So, like many a hard-working wealthy man has said to his spoiled, profligate progeny, Christie said: “This is for your own good: I’m cutting you off.
*Descended from Olympus and Lightworker Genius
