There is a lot of talk about infrastructure. Usually it involves building big highway bridges, wider roads, new electrical lines, or when they want to throw a bone to the greenies, maybe a stark-itect project like five miles of high speed rail or battery electric buses. Stuff that is great for ribbon cutting by the politicians but not really needed.
That’s all fine and dandy but I think the evidence is American infrastructure as it is pretty good today, we don’t need dramatic upgrades. Maybe some hardening to address climate change or integrate more renewable energy into the grid but there is already existing funding mechanisms to address that. Let individual agencies that have their own revenue sources and know best address these concerns – power companies, Department of Transportation and water authorities – not Washington politicians.
What I do think needs more investing in is the truly public infrastructure – things that can be utilized and enjoyed by all in a largely non consumptive fashion – for no charge or fee.
For example:
- Supporting free, open source development projects. People should have access to quality, professional and free software that allows them to do advanced data processing and all other tasks to expand knowledge, grow their business and improve their quality of life.
- Online learning – public colleges should put their lectures and teaching materials completely online. Video steaming, web storage are inexpensive these days and while there are costs associated with both generating and hosting such material – the public benefits of greater knowledge and credentialing exceed any taxpayer costs.
- Public wilderness and forest areas that are largely primative except maybe for necessary roads, parking and primative campsites. Many of these improvements could be funded via timber and mineral extraction fees
- Public libraries and free Wi-Fi so anybody can access the internet when they are in the public commons.
- Public data repositories where government data collected in ordinary duties should be easy to obtain, download and process for all purposes public and private without copyright limitations or fees. If the government can help businesses grow by providing free data to them then they should be providing that data rather than collecting licensing fees.
I don’t believe government should be funding for profit or fee based institutions. Roads have the gas tax, power and water utilities have ratepayers fees. Many developed parks have user fees – if you pay to get in then the government shouldn’t be in the business of subsidizing them.