A view from the bridge

IN SEPTEMBER the authorities in St Petersburg, on the west coast of Florida, released about 150m gallons of raw and partially treated sewage into Tampa Bay, the natural harbour on which the city sits. Flooding related to Hurricane Hermine had overwhelmed the city’s ageing wastewater system—the third such incident in 13 months. According to a whistle-blower, consultants warned the city in 2014 that closing one of its sewage plants could lead to such a catastrophe. But it did it anyway.

Both candidates for president agree that America must spend more on its infrastructure which, though good, is deteriorating. It attracts a score of 5.9, on a scale of 1-7, from the World Economic Forum, down from 6.1 in 2007. (Over the same period, other rich countries saw their scores grow by an average of 0.3.) Government data show that in 2014 some 32% of America’s roads were rated “poor” or worse for bumpiness, up from 16% in 2005. The average annual delay faced by commuters has increased by 62% since 1990.

The decline is the inevitable result of falling infrastructure investment (see chart). It tumbled after the recession as states and local governments, who provide nearly two-thirds of the money, scrambled to balance their budgets. The federal government’s recession-fighting stimulus package mitigated this only slightly. Between 2009 and 2014 just $55 billion of $828 billion in stimulus spending flowed to water and transport projects. From 2013 fiscal austerity made infrastructure funds still scarcer. In 2015 Congress scrimped together enough cash to keep the highway trust fund, which provides most of the federal funding for transport, in the black until 2020. But more money is needed to stop the decay.

Hillary Clinton promises an extra $275 billion over five years, which should return infrastructure investment to close to its pre-recession level. Her shopping list is lengthy. It includes both sober promises, like fixing potholes, and fanciful ideas, such as creating a “world-leading” railway network (taken at its word, this would require sending Japanese style bullet-trains across the country). This first $275 billion would come from mostly unspecified changes to the corporate tax.

Mrs Clinton would also continue Barack Obama’s quest to establish a national infrastructure bank, capitalised with $25 billion from the Treasury. The bank would borrow a further $225 billion, either from investors, or from Uncle Sam (which might be cheaper). In any case, the bank would funnel its cash to infrastructure projects in the form of loans and loan guarantees (it would support only projects which can make a return, like toll bridges).

Donald Trump—as usual—has less of substance to say. He laments the state of the nation’s bridges and airports and promises to repair them. He also says he will deliver “gleaming new infrastructure”. Asked in August how much this would cost, he replied, ostentatiously, that he would “at least double” Mrs Clinton’s numbers. To achieve this, he would start “a fund” and—wait for it—make a “phenomenal” deal with investors to raise capital.

Loose talk about loose purse-strings will make sceptics shiver. In the past, federal funds have flowed easily to boondoggles because politics, rather than thoughtful analysis, has directed the flow of money. For example, stimulus spending on transport was twice as generous, on a per-person basis, to sparsely populated areas than to densely populated ones, according to Edward Glaeser of Harvard University. It costs more to build in crowded cities than on empty fields, but low-density areas are, he notes, “remarkably well-endowed with senators per capita”.

Useless projects excel at soaking up federal cash. Alaska recently abandoned a plan to build an infamous bridge connecting an island with just 50 residents to the mainland. But it did use federal cash to build a road leading up to where the “bridge to nowhere” would have stood. West Virginia has almost the opposite problem. It has been building a highway through the Appalachian mountains for over a decade. But the absence of a connecting road in neighbouring Virginia means the project lacks a clear purpose.

Any new infrastructure programme must seek to avoid such profligacy. The priority should be unglamorous maintenance work, which has been neglected even as wasteful new projects have gone ahead. The Federal Highway Administration says that from 2011 until 2030 annual investment in roads must average $73 billion-78 billion, in 2010 dollars, just to restore existing roads to good condition (for comparison, such “rehabilitation” spending totalled only $60 billion in 2010). Maintenance could consume a big chunk of Mrs Clinton’s promised direct spending.

An infrastructure bank could screen new projects for value-for-money. Mrs Clinton promises hers would be independent of government and would choose what to fund “based on merit, not politics”. The requirement that projects produce revenue to repay the bank would introduce market discipline to the process, especially if private money were involved (though some wonder just how many profitable infrastructure opportunities exist).

Regulation might slow the diggers. A plethora of environmental, historical and other rules often restrict building. Many stimulus projects, far from being “shovel-ready”, took more than a year to get going because of local red tape. In May Larry Summers, a former treasury secretary and a vocal cheerleader for more infrastructure investment, complained in an article in the Boston Globe that regulation had delayed a project to repair a bridge near his office at Harvard University. The bridge took only 11 months to build in 1912, but the refurbishment, which began in 2012, is yet to be completed. When a contractor discovered it had to move a water pipe, the associated paperwork delayed work by a year. Another hold-up was a requirement, imposed by the Massachusetts Historical Commission, that the bridge had to have special bricks.

Other barmy rules abound. The Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 requires workers on federal projects to be paid the “prevailing wage”—calculated by bureaucrats—in the local area. Law prevents the federal government from charging tolls on existing interstate highways, limiting a potential source of new funds (Mr Obama has tried, unsuccessfully, to change this).

In recent years it has often taken disaster to spur investment. St Petersburg, Florida is now rushing to repair its leaky pipes; New Jersey at last raised its petrol tax to fund new transport spending after a fatal train crash in September. It is good that both candidates recognise the need for improvement. But that will require more than simply opening the chequebook.