Infrastructure

This blog took a shot last week at senate Republican leader Dave Cogdill yesterday for the hypocrisy of going after ballot initiatives as part of reform proposals. But Cogdill and his Assembly counterpart Mike Villines at least are offering a number of reform ideas. It's a long, piecemeal rollout, as they tackle contracting, education, and budget reform. Given the power of labor and the fact they're the minority party, few of these ideas have much chance of passing. But it's good that they're raising issues--California desperately needs a serious, wide-ranging debate about the structure of its government, its budget system, and its tax system. Here's the latest set of proposals. Of these ideas, the ones that have the best chance of making it are the ones calling for more government transparency (requiring public agencies to publish their expenditures on the Internet in a searchable form), the elimination of some state mandates to local school districts in bad budget times, and the speeding up of voter-approved infrastructure projects.

US News & World Report (04/11) asks Sherle Schwenninger about economic policy and the U.S. government.
The National Interest (04/10) quotes Steve Clemons on the subtlety of realist politics.
Bloomberg (03/24) quotes William Hartung on the benefits to contractors in Iraq.

In each formulation of American grand strategy since World War II -- until we inexplicably stopped such planning in 1992 -- the President and Congress relied on the power of the American economy to do the strategic heavy lifting. Sixteen years, however, is far too long for even the American economic engine to coast without a strategic re-alignment, and the stimulus, bailouts, subsidies and even military operations that naturally ensued have forced even Martin Wolf of the FT to declare the "dream of global free market capitalism" dead. Writing in the upcoming issue of The Nation, Sherle Schwenninger, looks to the architects of the New Deal and finds three lessons essential for re-tooling the American economic engine and bring market capitalism back home to America's shores.

America needs $1.6 trillion in public investments to get our infrastructure up to date, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. New America's Economic Growth program, led by Sherle Schwenninger, argues that not only is it necessary, but in a time of recession, infrastructure-based stimulus is the best way to revive the economy.

So it's heartening to see that with rust-belt states coming up on the primary horizon, more presidential candidates are supporting public investment.