To understand why "shovel-ready" jobs are never as beneficial as liberals purport them to be, consider the present value of money and Davis-Bacon work rules.
Getting the required permits and studies, lawsuits, environmental regulations. Community activists conspire to delay projects, such as the badly needed new I-75 bridge over the Ohio River in Cincinnati(so says my dad), while running up attendant costs for years. This is a principal reason public-works projects are so slow in getting started and often come in late and over budget. Who knows what materials and equipment will cost five and more years into the future?
The Depression-era Davis-Bacon work rules, so adored by the left, ensure that the taxpayer does not get the best possible job completed at the fairest price. Union wages and work rules hinder the ability of project administrators to consider all labor options, often inflating costs beyond what local conditions would bear.
President Obama said recently what those of us who live in the entrepreneurial private sector have always known: There are no shovel-ready jobs. The misguided stimulus was like crack to state, county, city and township politicians who uniformly chirped, "give us the money, we have plenty of shovel-ready projects."
Until the public demands that politicians streamline regulatory road blocks, use modern private business efficiencies and allow private enterprise to construct and maintain public projects, we will stay in a self-imposed figure-four leglock. In the 19th century, James Hill built the Great Northern Railway, 1,800 miles from St. Paul, Minn., to Seattle, with scores of bridges and tunnels, through the inhospitable Rocky Mountains in four years, on time and under budget using private funds. Today we can't build a simple highway exchange on time or close to budget.
doug
Getting the required permits and studies, lawsuits, environmental regulations. Community activists conspire to delay projects, such as the badly needed new I-75 bridge over the Ohio River in Cincinnati(so says my dad), while running up attendant costs for years. This is a principal reason public-works projects are so slow in getting started and often come in late and over budget. Who knows what materials and equipment will cost five and more years into the future?
The Depression-era Davis-Bacon work rules, so adored by the left, ensure that the taxpayer does not get the best possible job completed at the fairest price. Union wages and work rules hinder the ability of project administrators to consider all labor options, often inflating costs beyond what local conditions would bear.
President Obama said recently what those of us who live in the entrepreneurial private sector have always known: There are no shovel-ready jobs. The misguided stimulus was like crack to state, county, city and township politicians who uniformly chirped, "give us the money, we have plenty of shovel-ready projects."
Until the public demands that politicians streamline regulatory road blocks, use modern private business efficiencies and allow private enterprise to construct and maintain public projects, we will stay in a self-imposed figure-four leglock. In the 19th century, James Hill built the Great Northern Railway, 1,800 miles from St. Paul, Minn., to Seattle, with scores of bridges and tunnels, through the inhospitable Rocky Mountains in four years, on time and under budget using private funds. Today we can't build a simple highway exchange on time or close to budget.
doug
