Big and bold push infrastructure push dies again in Washington

Infrastructure is becoming like the weather: nearly everyone in Washington complains about it, but nothing really ever gets done about it.

A June photo op at the White House between leaders of both political parties renewed hopes for a $2 billion package on infrastructure improvements that supporters said was “big and bold.” But those hopes were dashed by President Donald Trump almost immediately stomped out of a subsequent meeting between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., over some reason or another.

“It's about jobs, jobs, jobs…it's a quality of life issue,” Pelosi has said. “And in every way it's a safety issue.”

Everyone agrees that it’s necessary. But hardly anyone agrees how to pay for it.

And while nobody in Washington is formally saying so, crafting an infrastructure package together at this stage is beginning to look like a summer illusion.

For one thing, there is precious little time for Congress to meet before summer recess kicks in. Neither political party seems willing to allow the other side to claim “a win” in any sense of bipartisanship a year before a national election. And Trump’s transience on the issue seems insurmountable.

So for the third straight summer since his election, Trump, who claims to have made millions building things, cannot lead a nation in rebuilding its tired infrastructure.

While businesses, businesses, labor unions, and other advocates continue to tell leaders that rebuilding America’s infrastructure is a national imperative, the silence at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. is deafening.

So the patchwork and borrowing continues. Since 2008, Congress has taken $144 billion from general government funding to cover Highway Trust Fund shortfalls. Infrastructure advocates say the system needs a sustainable funding mechanism. Infrastructure funding must be dedicated to the infrastructure network.

A modest nickel-a-gallon increase in the fuel tax was one part of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s plan to help fund its proposal.  That would raise $394 billion over the next 10 years. All this would cost the average American only about $9 a month in additional gas taxes, according to the Chamber’s estimate.

While traditional wisdom has raising any sort of tax prior to an election year is politically disastrous, the idea that raising the gas tax is a guaranteed political disaster is a “myth,” Chamber officials say.

Some 13 states have raised their state fuel levies since 2016. These include such “red” states as Alabama, Arkansas, Ohio, Oklahoma, Indiana, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia and Montana. California, Oregon and New Jersey are among the “blue” states doing the same.

The myth was conservative state legislators who would be repelled at any suggestions of a tax hike. Instead, what happened? They ended up voted for investing in roads and bridges.

In Alabama earlier this year, a special session of the newly-installed state legislature took the legal minimum five days to pass a gas tax increase and have it signed into law. In New Jersey, every legislator that voted for a gas tax increase was reelected. In California, voters had a chance last year to repeal the 2017 gas tax increase, but that effort was defeated by about a 60-40 margin.

Maybe that’s because Californians remembered the average commuter spends 42 hours in traffic annually and experiences $599 in damage to their vehicle each year from driving on roads that need repairs.

It’s also a safety issue. The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety found that roadway improvements could save more than 3,100 lives and prevent more than 17,000 serious injuries every year.

As for jobs, the U.S. economy would benefit from improved infrastructure funding, too. Research finds under-investment costs the U.S. 900,000 jobs, and every $1 billion invested in transportation infrastructure creates more than 21,000 jobs.

UPS has figured out if each of its vehicles is delayed an extra five minutes every day due to inadequate infrastructure, it costs the package giant $114 million annually.

The Chamber has said the business community has done its best to make sure the Trump administration, Congress, and other decision makers know what is needed out of an infrastructure deal. It’s simply a lack of political will prevented it.

Again.