RALEIGH – Those who seek election to political office deserve our thanks for their willingness to serve. Those who win election to political office deserve a chance to demonstrate their work ethic and wisdom.
But no one who wins election and then makes demonstrably foolish decisions deserves our respect. I’m rapidly losing whatever respect I had for politicians who continue to vote to fund low-priority projects in the midst of a fiscal crisis.
The problem exists at the federal, state, and local levels of government. Consider two recent decisions that involve senseless decisions at every level:
• Out of $10 billion in federal “stimulus” funds borrowed to date by Washington and routed through Raleigh to communities across the state, roughly $745 million has been devoted to road and bridge projects vs. $545 million devoted to what government officials call high-speed rail (it’s not, really).
Think about those figures for a moment. Millions of vehicles traverse North Carolina’s roads and bridges every day, accounting for the vast majority of all commuting, freight delivery, and intercity transportation in our state. On the other hand, only a few hundred people regularly ride intercity rail lines in North Carolina, and at best a few thousand will regularly use the expanded service should it ever materialize.
Why are we spending 73 cents on rail for every dollar spent on roads? No rational decisionmaking process would yield such a result. Then again, we are talking about government here.
Officials in the affected cities and towns say they’re just following the lead of state government. Officials in Raleigh say they’re just applying for the grant monies made available by Congress and the Obama administration in Washington. And federal officials say they are just responding to requests from states and localities while seeking to put as many construction employees to work as possible.
What really happened is that a few environmental extremists and Smart Growth fanatics got control of the relevant agencies in the U.S. Department of Transportation and have earmarked your money on their pet projects. But they are little more than children playing with expensive toys. Where is the adult supervision?
• Similarly, the Charlotte city council has narrowly approved a plan to spend $25 million in federal funds to begin construction of a streetcar line from the uptown arena to Presbyterian Hospital. There is no way to argue with a straight face, given the manifest traffic problems in North Carolina’s largest city, that the high-priority use of new transportation dollars in the Queen City is an uptown streetcar. What’s worse, the cash-strapped city will have to cut spending somewhere else to pay the rest of the $37 million upfront cost, plus the $1.5 million annual operating cost.
But, again, Charlotte officials are saying that once the Obama administration liberalized federal transit rules to allow for streetcar funding, the city would have been remiss if it didn’t apply for its share of the loot.
These are pathetic excuses for idiotic decisions. All the money comes from the same taxpayers, regardless of whether the cash is sent directly to local coffers or is instead sent to Raleigh or Washington and returned (minus the political shipping and handling charges). Real leaders would work with their congressional delegation to confront foolish federal grant programs, demanding that if Washington is going to drive taxpayers billions of dollars further into debt then at least the money ought to be spent on projects that can promise significant improvements in traffic, safety, or delivery costs.
Neither intercity rail nor the Charlotte streetcar would meet such a cost-benefit test. In times of economic growth, they would be merely expensive distractions. In times of economic recession, however, they are simply indefensible.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.