By Special Guest Contributor Rep. Jack Williams (HD 47)
Now more than ever, it is important that we understand where and how the government is spending our money. For far too long we have been content to let government bureaucrats employ deceptive budget practices and wasteful spending. That failure to pay attention has led us to where we are now, over $13 trillion dollars in debt. Americans have to start paying attention and demand that Congress start spending and budgeting money responsibly.
Nowhere is this more true than in the case of infrastructure spending. President Obama recently proposed an additional $50 billion in infrastructure spending—over and above the $787 billion stimulus package—under the guise that it will create jobs and boost the U.S. economy. Infrastructure spending has long been used as a deep black hole into which taxpayer money disappears. Federal and local governments have used accounting gimmicks to hide the real cost of building and maintaining infrastructure projects to sneak budgets past taxpayers or gain political points. As a result, our infrastructure is crumbling. If these measures pass, it’s going to be important to pay attention to how that money gets spent.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie recently pulled funding for a New Jersey to New York rail tunnel project because the state couldn’t afford the cost overruns. Boston’s “Big Dig, “ the most expensive highway project in the U.S. was estimated to cost $2.8 billion in 1985 when the project began. In 2008, the Boston Globe estimated the real total cost to be a staggering $22 billion. So why do these projects get so out of hand? One reason is that the budget process is completely broken on both the state and federal level. Between cost overruns and budget gimmicks, politicians have mortgaged our nation’s future for short-term political gains.
So how do we fix this problem? The answer is that we get back to responsible budgeting. When the average person sets out to make a major purchase, a car for instance, they look at what the total cost of the car would be. In other words, instead of just looking at what the car will cost in terms of the price tag, they consider what it will cost to insure the car, service and maintain the car, and what the re-sale value might be. Our government officials need to be doing this when they go to make major investments as well.
Governments should consider the full life cycle cost of any investment it makes. That means not just how much something costs to build, but also how much it costs to operate and maintain decades into the future. According to the Congressional Budget Office, this method of life-cycle budgeting is the key to ensuring infrastructure projects are cost effective. Not surprisingly they also found that use of life cycle costs extended the life of equipment eliminated redundant systems, reduced the cost of operations and maintenance as much as 40 percent, and improved systems’ reliability by roughly 70%.
Most of the reform measures that need to take place are common sense. The American people are simply asking elected officials to spend taxpayer like they would their own…carefully and responsibly.
