https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-bidens-new-deal-can-really-make-america-great-again/2021/04/01/667af1e0-9321-11eb-a74e-1f4cf89fd948_story.html
Opinion: How Biden’s New Deal can really make America great again
Fareed Zakaria
A street is closed because of roadwork in Jersey City, N.J., on Wednesday.
(Eduardo Munoz/Reuters)
While Donald Trump claimed he wanted to “Make America Great Again,” President
Biden is attempting to actually do it. The former president’s slogan got
Americans thinking nostalgically about the 1950s and early ’60s, when the
United States dominated the world and its economy produced rising wages for
workers and executives alike. A defining feature of those years was federal
investment in infrastructure, scientific research and education. (Think
interstate highways, NASA and the massive expansion of public universities.) By
contrast, Washington in recent years has mostly spent money to fund private
consumption by giving people tax cuts or transfer payments. Biden’s
infrastructure plan is the first major fiscal program in five decades that
would focus once again on investment.
When you look at federal spending as a whole, it seems to have risen
significantly over the past few decades. But the composition of that spending
tells the real story — most of that increase is a result of sharp rises in
entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. Core investment spending
has actually dropped substantially. The United States used to spend as much as
3 percent of its gross domestic product on transportation and water
infrastructure; that number is now closer to 2 percent. The United States used
to be the world’s unquestioned leader in basic science and technology. China is
now almost on par with it.
Biden’s plan harks back to the New Deal. During the Great Depression, the Works
Progress Administration (WPA) built or improved almost 1,000 airports, creating
the backbone of the modern airline industry. The president’s proposal will help
create a modern electric vehicle system by funding a network of 500,000
chargers. The 1936 Rural Electrification Act brought electricity to rural
areas. Biden proposes doing the same with high-speed Internet, which he argues
is the equivalent in today’s economy. The New Deal was bigger (relative to the
size of the economy at the time), but it is the only valid comparison with what
the Biden administration is proposing.
Where the spirit of the New Deal is sorely needed today is in the cost,
efficiency and transparency of these kinds of projects. The United States used
to be able to build things with astonishing speed. The George Washington
Bridge, the world’s longest suspension bridge when it opened in 1931 across the
Hudson River from Manhattan to New Jersey, was built in four years, ahead of
schedule and under budget. By contrast, just adding two miles of new subway
lines and three new stations in Manhattan took, depending on when you start
counting, 10 to 100 years and ended up costing $4.5 billion by the time it
opened in 2017.
Building infrastructure in the United States is insanely expensive. The New
York Times found that another project in New York, an expansion of the Long
Island Rail Road, was the most expensive subway track on Earth, coming in at
seven times the world average. New York is particularly bad — in a league of
its own — but U.S. infrastructure often costs several times more than it does
in Europe. Paris, Rome and Madrid have managed to build subway extensions for
less. Yet those cities are hundreds of years older than any in the United
States, and they have many unions and tons of regulations. So none of the usual
excuses will do.
One recent study found that the cost of building U.S. interstate highways
quadrupled from the 1960s to the 1990s, though material and labor costs have
barely budged (after accounting for inflation). There are lots of reasons:
multiple authorities (each with a veto), endless rules and reviews, and likely
corruption. New York University scholar Alon Levy did a detailed analysis of
the country’s crazy costs and concluded that there were at least eight reasons
for them. Fundamentally, though, he concluded that they were so high because
Americans were unwilling or unable to look around the world and try to learn
from other countries. American exceptionalism has led to an exceptional,
uniquely bad system for building infrastructure.
By contrast, the New Deal was surprisingly well-run. The WPA employed 3 million
people at its peak, more than any private company. In today’s workforce that
would be about 10 million people. The entire enterprise was skillfully managed
by Harry Hopkins, a social worker-turned-bureaucrat who was one of Franklin D.
Roosevelt’s closest aides. The vast Tennessee Valley Authority — spanning seven
states and eventually comprising about 30 hydroelectric dams — was devotedly
led by David Lilienthal, a crusading lawyer. Most of the funds appropriated for
the New Deal were administered scrupulously by Interior Secretary Harold Ickes,
another confidant of FDR. Each of these men developed a reputation for honesty,
efficiency and reliability, which in turn made people believe that government
could do big things and do them well.
For the Biden administration to truly be transformative, it needs to rival not
only the ambition of the New Deal but also its impressive execution.
Read more from Fareed Zakaria’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to
his daily newsletter.
Henry Olsen: Republicans are right to oppose Biden’s infrastructure plan. But
they must offer an alternative.
E.J. Dionne Jr.: Biden is transforming the nation’s political assumptions
The Post’s View: Biden’s infrastructure plan is a big bet on big government
Greg Sargent: Biden’s big bet: He’s found the kryptonite that will defeat
Trumpism
Jennifer Rubin: Critics will talk about the cost of infrastructure. Biden
should stress its value.
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