To Solve America’s Issues, Start With Infrastructure
Devon Jiang
Revitalizing infrastructure is one of the most impactful solutions where Americans see benefits in their daily lives. Without regularly maintained infrastructure, we could not have high-speed internet, more energy failures would occur, and commuting would become incredibly disdainful.
Many Americans agree that Congress should heavily invest in our infrastructure, with more than 70% of Americans wanting the country to spend a trillion dollars on improving our daily lives. As a result, infrastructure is one of the few remaining issues where bipartisan support is achievable.
Starting with the long-term modernizing of our grids and systems has an immense impact on our economy. Without improvements to the Portal Bridge and North River Tunnels in New Jersey, Amtrak believes that the economy could lose $100 million every day. In Biden and Trump's plan, infrastructure is and was a marquee agenda. Trump proposed a $1 trillion infrastructure plan. Even though that package never came to fruition, the willingness to spend a large amount of cash shows the need for reform.
2021 is not the first time that Democrats and Republicans were amiable towards infrastructure relief. In 2009, Congress and former President Barack Obama approved the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. In the bill, $105.3 billion went into improvements for transportation, environmental restoration, wastewater treatment, and more.
More than a decade after the bill became law, America has not seen much progress in infrastructure, as we still campaign for change in our transportation and pipelines. The plurality of the infrastructure package went towards roads, which benefits suburbanites while systematically discounting the lives of lower-income families and minorities living in cities.
There were some amounts of money, $8 billion, that went towards high-speed rail and other public transit systems. Today, there is no high-speed network in America, and the remaining high-speed intercity rail projects are ballooning in cost. According to Amtrak, implementing a new high-speed network along the Northeast Corridor would cost $500 million per mile.
Spending on infrastructure is the most obvious idea the Federal Government should partake, especially as Americans will soon get back to the now foreign idea of commuting to work. If long-term growth in our systems is what we want to accomplish, though, then bills must spend on the right things, and Congress should promise long-term commitments.
Rectifying Racial Inequity
For several decades, America's public servants have denigrated the lives of minorities and those with low-incomes through transportation. In 1956, Dwight D. Eisenhower poured billions into the building of highways. Due to the States' low money commitment, they were eager to construct roads connecting rural areas to populated centers.
A byproduct of building roads in cities was eminent domain and destroying homes to pave the way to urban cores. Many Jim Crow politicians took this opportunity and targeted black Americans, calling their neighborhoods the "blight" of cities. At the time, eviction was not regulated, allowing the Southern States and even Northern States decrease predominantly Black neighborhoods while decreasing their property values through noise pollution.
Highways, which can be massive in width, were also used as boundaries between white and "blight" neighborhoods. In Birmingham, Alabama, their public safety commissioner, Bull Connor, used highways to promote the aforementioned agendas. At the College Hills and Fountain Heights Neighborhoods, white homeowners wanted Connor to provide a demarcation between them and the predominantly Black East Thomas neighborhood. Using Interstate 20 and Interstate 65, Connor was able to isolate East Thomas.
(Source: Google Maps)
After constructing the two highways, Black residents were having trouble getting out of the neighborhood, their house value dropped due to noise pollution, and they received lackluster support from their Government. Even today, there are only two significant crossings that allow walkers to travel between East Thomas and College Hills. Birmingham is only one example of highway segregation. In Trenton, US Route 1 cuts the city in half, preventing its majority African American population from quickly traveling. Meanwhile, white suburban workers are using the highways to have a "faster" commute.
Building and maintaining highways is a death spiral for minorities. The Federal Government gives States money to improve and widen highways, which causes urban residents who have money to move to the suburbs, increasing traffic on the highways, resulting in more Government funding for more lanes. All the while, black and brown communities do not fit into that spiral. Because of the systemic segregation of minority neighborhoods, their house value decreases. As a result, minorities cannot afford to move to the suburbs. Since the Government sees these properties as too risky to invest in, the infrastructure of minority neighborhoods becomes worse. This inaction can cause many problems, including lower-quality education, mental health issues, and working multiple jobs to pay for crumbling infrastructure.
Inclusion of Rural States in Benefits
Currently, infrastructure is a bipartisan issue due to the economic benefits seen as a byproduct. The rural States, though, frequently lose out on the benefits. Consequently, politicians prevent regional projects from being passed in the Federal Government, like the Gateway Project in the Hudson River area. Lawmakers do not see the point in investing billions of dollars into a project meant to advance New Jerseyans and Northeastern urban lives.
Lawmakers are speaking more partisan platitudes rather than opinions based on facts. If the Hudson Tunnel were to fail, $22 billion in loss would be the immediate effects. Long-term, an economic downturn could occur, as New York is the financial capital of the world. New Jerseyans can imagine having to take the dreaded PATH train through Jersey City with its screeching rails, in part because the Hudson River tunnels have failed multiple times. This situation may sound similar to fear-mongering, but the bulk of America's veins are in New York, and they are failing. Therefore, rural Senators should get on board with allowing the Gateway program to succeed.
What lawmakers think and want are usually reflections of their constituents' opinions (ahem, American Rescue Plan). Creating a comprehensive infrastructure plan to pass the Senate's filibuster cannot, as a result, only focus on urban cores and highways. Rural states in the heartland of America have to receive benefits, too. Amtrak has taken note of rural communities, even though their most profitable routes are in the Northeast. With the introduction of next-generation Acela trains, they partnered with Alstom to manufacture the trainsets in the rust belt region of New York. Manufacturing from a blue-collar area is a great start, but expanding to less populated States would increase the equilibrium of benefits.
Infrastructure involves vast amounts of manufacturing plants, which present an opportunity for rural States. Bringing manufacturing of bridges, prefabricated materials, transit, wind turbines, and more to less populated States will attract more jobs and better wages, something desperately needed in the middle of a pandemic.
Manufacturing is one sector that rural areas can benefit from. More importantly, revitalizing rural infrastructure must be a cornerstone of any infrastructure bill. For the past several decades, the Federal Government has primarily focused on profit-making infrastructure in dense areas. Energy and telecommunications are two sectors that are neglected for the rural community.
Broadband is a critical infrastructure needed for low-income families and rural States alike. Currently, America's telecommunications system in rural States is lamentable, where the FCC does not even know how many Americans do not have rural broadband. The Trump Administration estimated more than 20 million Americans do not have access to high-speed internet, but Microsoft says that number is as high as 160 million.
Energy is another aspect the Government needs to take care of in respect to sparsely populated areas. Currently, utility companies do not have any incentives to operate efficiently in those communities, allowing for more blackouts and service interruptions. Consequently, the energy burden for rural and low-income households is 9%.
The issues of infrastructure with rural Americans are similar to that of minorities and low-income Americans. There are fewer reasons why a company or a business should improve infrastructure in places where they lose profits. This thinking, though, along with the lack of Government action, has left these groups far behind the average American in every single metric.
Empowerment of the Environment
Building and improving roads is a beneficial short-term solution, but significant challenges lie if the US focuses on automobile transportation. Every year, each car, on average, burns 4.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide. Unless America chooses to give more traveling options, this country will continue to pollute the planet and frack an increasingly dangerous material. Highways also benefit primarily white Americans and the suburbs, who can afford cars.
There has been a push on the State and municipal level in recent decades to provide more public transit options. In Phoenix, planners developed an urban renewal that included light rail for the city, which is lauded among Maricopa County residents. A similar mindset should replicate nationally.
Another sector of infrastructure is energy. Currently, the world has increased 1.7 degrees as a result of fossil fuel. With the continuation of coal burning, an increase of 16.2 degrees could occur. The first number alone harms the lives of hundreds of thousands, and the second number would affect hundreds of millions. The US could mitigate this problem through the expansion of renewable energy infrastructure.
Climate denialists could state that global warming is a menial thing and will not impact society for decades to come. Even with that statement, that does not mean the Government should not invest in different energy sources. With more utility companies and renewable energy sources, there is more competition, meaning lower energy prices.
Investing in wind turbines, solar power, safe nuclear power plants, geothermal plants, and biomass gives Americans choice and freedom. These are all values that conservatives and liberals champion. All of this infrastructure can happen in rural, underserved, or fossil fuel States, which results in the development of advanced jobs and better education for America's next generation. Eight hundred fifty thousand jobs in the US have already sprouted due to renewable energy. This sector has a massive growth opportunity to give stable employment to the millions of current Americans who do not have a job.
Entrepreneurship Should Dictate the Future
One of the most treasured notions in American society is the ability to witness the American dream. Entrepreneurship and small businesses are a powerful tool the Government should aid for innovation in infrastructure. Giving back to the environment is a growing field, but there are challenges the Government can rely on startups to solve.
One of the major pitfalls of many electric products is that they currently rely on lithium-ion batteries. These batteries have a limit in their performance and, after a while, they start to decrease in performance. Startups are working to change that, using sodium-ion batteries. The startup culture can expand to other parts of the infrastructure. Roads rely on asphalt and concrete, but the production of asphalt causes harmful gasses. Plastic is piling up our dumping grounds. Using the thrown-away plastic, Technisoil Industrial is a startup company run by Sean Weaver. Weaver uses liquified plastics and creates a hybrid mixture of asphalt and recycled plastic.
Small businesses like Technisoil are the companies that Governments can help in cementing the future of infrastructure. Incentivizing startups in infrastructure using tax cuts or loans will result in even more jobs and innovation, allowing America to be the world's dominant player for energy.
Provisions that Advance America
Providing a comprehensive bill with the right components is never easy. That said, Americans deserve more than an improvement of bridges and highways. In addition to replacing 7.5% of America's bridges deemed structurally deficient, the Government should invest more money into public transit systems. In cities and large towns, light rail and streetcars can make commuting faster and more competitive. Innovation can also improve our transportation systems. In Toronto, public transit does not only help suburban workers commute to and from work; it helps low-income individuals in cities get around districts. Transportation is not only about helping the status quo; it is an avenue for benefiting minorities and the disenfranchised.
(Source: Google Maps)
The Government ought to fund municipal broadband and ISPs in rural communities. These projects take money and are not profitable, which means that Congress has a job to fill the void. If all Americans had 25 Mbps download speeds, essential medical diagnostics could save lives, kids will no longer have to say that the internet was preventing them from doing homework, and school districts will not have to park busses with routers in neighborhoods. John Lewis advocated for these ideas, calling the internet an inherent right everyone should have access to.
Energy does not have to follow the usual funding. Instead of continuously funding fossil fuels and letting the sector have an energy monopoly, extensive funding for renewable energy would bring needed competition. The Government should promote more power grid technology focusing on locality. Incentives could help increase solar panel installation in condominiums.
Home power grids are power plants inside residences, which, if used in Texas, would have saved the State from blackouts. These mini power plants would connect with neighboring plants to provide a microgrid complimenting the existing grid. These mini-grids come into action during the afternoons, when power is most needed, and when the primary power grids experience a failure. This technique can apply to rural communities, making those markets more economically viable for utility companies.
Micro-grids are the connections between energy users simulated by the relationship between power plants and respondents (Source: N-Sci)
Public transit, municipal broadband, and microgrids are not the only solutions, but they are the most innovative in tackling the systemic problems minorities and rural communities face with infrastructure. By themselves, these projects are massive. Building a microgrid takes immense capital, public transit is usually not seen in the US as moneymakers, and there are special interests in Washington trying to suppress competition in energy.
With the talk of infrastructure comes the orthodox discussion concerning the funding of these projects. "How to fund infrastructure" is the reason why America has not made smart advancements in rebuilding itself. Finding funding should not be the hard part; there are many ways to fund. Below are a few:
Increasing the gas tax. The last time the Federal gas tax went up was during Bill Clinton's honeymoon period. Ever since October 1993, the gas tax has stuck at 18.4 cents per gallon. The US Chamber of Commerce favors increasing the tax, which is unusual, but nonetheless they support a 25 cent per gallon tax. A seven-cent increase would supply $394 billion in ten years and represent only a $9 increase per month for drivers.
Implementing Senator Warren's wealth tax. Warren's plan involves taxing two percent of individuals' net worth over $50 million and an additional percent for those worth above $1 billion. The Senator from Massachusetts hypothesizes this taxation would raise $2.75 trillion over a decade. The majority of Americans agree with the bill, with more than 60% of Americans approving it. For those wanting to read the bill, the title is S. 150.
Using private capital firms to form public-private partnerships with large-scale infrastructure projects. This agreement would get money through current taxes and funding from the private sector under the condition that the company takes a certain percentage of profits. While this proposal would be the first time enacted by a Federal Government, State Governments have already tested this model. In New York, the Carlyle Group is helping to rebuild Terminal One at JFK, while LaGuardia was one of the first projects in the US to be publicly-privately funded.
Funding through one of these three options could fund the bulk of the money needed for infrastructure. The growth in the economy could also count as a funding source. Many Republicans, and some Democrats, though, would cringe at this. Until 1993, Republican Presidents were willing to raise the gas tax. In the final year of Bush Sr's administration, Democrats increased the gas tax to relieve the deficit, a no-no for Congressional Republicans. Congressional leaders also have a stigma that raising the gas tax is unpopular.
Senator Warren's wealth tax is also a situation where, even with Americans' broad appeal, Washingtonian politicians are unwilling to take up the bill. Many Republicans are against higher taxation, especially Republicans with a college degree. Even though only 100,000 Americans will face higher taxes, an ultra-millionaire wealth tax is viewed as a radical proposition in Blue Dog Democrats and Republicans' eyes. Taxing the uber-wealthy should not face pushback from Republicans, yet it is.
The third proposal is a niche way to fund vast infrastructure improvements, but many pundits and politicians believe this process could only apply to a few projects. Therefore, there would still contain a large amount of money the Government needed to pay.
A combination of two plans not listed could erase some of the money required by the Government. In many cities, there are mass parking spaces, enough to fit in West Virginia when combined. More room could occur for public transit or additional development through less regulation of the number of parking meters and parking spaces per location, flowing money to State Governments. Consequently, the Federal Government could divert some of the State's money for the infrastructure bill. The Government could launch competitions for American small businesses to provide affordable materials for building train cars, innovative batteries, recycled asphalt, and more. Unfortunately, both of these ideas are unlikely to produce enough money for the funding of infrastructure.
Ultimately, the decision as to how funding will happen is up to Senate Democrats. More specifically, Senator Manchin (D-WV) and Senator Sinema (D-AZ) have centralized power for Warren's wealth tax and increased gas tax. Both of the tax proposals could fall under reconciliation, meaning a simple majority needs to be reached. Manchin, though, is from one of the largest coal-producing States, eliminating the possibility of a gas tax increase. Meanwhile, Warren's wealth tax could support both conservative Democrats based on support from their constituents. No matter how infrastructure is funded, though, America's future rests on it.
Why Infrastructure is Crucial
Infrastructure is the core that is connected to other issues in Government. Inadequate internet speeds reduce education quality, delay essential hospitalizations, and impact businesses that increasingly rely on online commerce. Highways and transportation make commuting to one's job(s) or going to school tougher. If one cannot afford a car, they most likely cannot go to the suburbs and instead reside in an apartment with low property values. Without reliable energy, the quality of life lowers.
As Biden prepares to launch a bill with Democrats in the House, Biden's plan has to skirt precedent legislation's mistakes. Giving money to States is no longer enough for considerable benefits to Americans. To improve the economy long-term, Biden must target aid towards underserved minority and rural communities in addition to the suburbs. Also, promises of long-term commitments are the only way to ensure that massive undertakings like the Gateway project become a reality.
Legislation must pass with detail for the spending of money and different infrastructure types, and Congress has already relinquished too much time for action. Delays to underfunded projects like the Gateway program cost millions of additional dollars. Jobs in expanded infrastructure projects can substantially reduce the current unemployment rate.
COVID-19 is not a reason for infrastructure to receive another delay. Aptly implementing a bill on infrastructure that recognizes the current racial inequities, opportunities of competitive energy, and all Americans' needs will result in long-term recovery. With the passage of an infrastructure bill, Americans of all demographics can envision long-lasting prosperity, and New Jerseyans, in particular, can finally say good riddance to the horrors of PATH.
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