Dismal history of big infrastructure?

in #government2 years ago

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/28/us/infrastructure-megaprojects.html

Government cost and time estimates are always wrong in the same direction.

The reason should be relatively obvious:

Political incentives all but guarantee that the politicians selling their big dumb plans will lie, both to the public and to the Congressional Budget Office. The public wants to hear that new roads and bridges and bullet trains are all going to be quick, painless projects that barely cost anything. The CBO, meanwhile, relies on whatever assumptions politicians write into their proposals and just do the math accepting that those assumptions are true.

And what's the incentive to keep costs under control?

The budget is seemingly unlimited. It's all money coming from taxpayers, so politicians don't really have to worry about how much their proposals cost. Most every infrastructure project is executed by heavily unionized government contractors who will stretch out the gravy train as long as possible.

None of this should be surprising.