Fast and Embarrassing

A study from the Indiana University and the University of Hong Kong took a statistical look at where corruption in the United States was greatest. “Using data from more than 25,000 convictions of elected officials for violations of federal corruption laws between the years of 1976 to 2008, combined with an analysis of state spending, the researchers came up with a corruption scale that ranks states for corruption…1. Mississippi 2. Louisiana 3. Tennessee 4. Illinois 5. Pennsylvania 6. Alabama 7. Alaska 8. South Dakota 9. Kentucky 10. Florida [were ranked in terms of greatest levels of corruption] …

“Findings included that] States with higher levels of corruption are likely to spend more money on:

·         Construction -- Specifically on large, complicated projects that make it hard for the public to follow.

·         Salaries -- More public servants that are well-paid

·         Corrections and police protection

“And most importantly: 9 out of the 10 most corrupt states (except South Dakota) spend more money than the least corrupt states.

“However, these same states tend to spend less money on:

·         Education

·         Healthcare and Hospitals

·         Welfare

“What is the explanation behind this pattern of spending? Indiana University's John Mikesell, the co-author of the study, said this is because human services programs hinder the collection of bribes.”    Huffington Post, June 17^th.

Other than the “usual reasons,” why does this really matter? In the analysis of what the United States needs to do to move forward in terms of economic growth, the three government “growth investment sectors” (infrastructure, education and research), one of the largest category of need on the list is the $2.2 trillion of needed infrastructure repairs (according to the American Society of Civil Engineers - ASCE). That’s for repairs! New infrastructure and serious expansion of what we have could easily double that number. Research and education don’t generally produce the levels of corruption-waste as does infrastructure, especially the big infrastructure development we need to bring us back to the top of the economic heap.

To extract our greatest bang for the buck, the United States needs to drill down on our unofficial way of paying back political favors and our even more unofficial way of getting big projects done: bribery. Madison Bondi, writing for the above Huffington Post article, notes the obvious in one of the most populous of the states on the bad list: “I don't need a Google search to tell me that Illinois has become synonymous with political corruption. Just look at our track record of governors: four out of the last seven have been to prison (or are still in prison). And that's just our governors; we don't want to get into U.S. representatives, state representatives, aldermen or even small-town comptrollers.” But elected officials seems to screw it up at every level.

As Congressional conservatives grandstand on national television about cutting government expenses, infrastructure projects that have already been greenlighted are about to run out of cash. Unfunded, these projects will shut down in the key summer construction months. “‘Congress shouldn’t pat itself on the back for averting disaster for a few months, kicking the can down the road for a few months, careening from crisis to crisis,’ Mr. Obama told workers at the Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center just outside Washington. ‘We should be investing in the future.’

“Without the action, the Highway Trust Fund will be depleted at the beginning of August, cutting federal transportation financing by 28 percent and slowing or stopping as many as 100,000 projects around the country just as the construction season is about to start in many states, according to officials. Congress in the past typically passed new highway bills with bipartisan support, but in recent years even this once-popular spending priority has become a subject of intense partisan friction.” New York Times, July 15^th.

The United States is limping along with an infrastructure system that is living on fumes in deferred maintenance hell. It affects our ability to move goods across the nation, to sustain efficient commerce. We know bridges, levees, highways, dams, water and sewage systems, waste disposal, school buildings, airports, seaports, waterways, rail systems, electrical grids, etc. need to be expanded and repaired. The ASCE tells us we should be spending $3.3 trillion by 2020 on infrastructure projects.

We are not remotely allocating anywhere near that spending level, but as we do agree to begin the rebuilding and building we must accomplish, it might really be a great idea to redesign the building and procurement systems for such infrastructure construction to have: increasing checks and balances, vastly greater transparency, as well as clearly independent auditing and oversight responsibility with prosecutorial powers before we allocate and spend the money.With numbers in the trillions, the potential for billions and billions of corruption wasted dollars loom large; we need the legal and accounting infrastructure in place now! But we really need infrastructure investment to accelerate big time… or we can watch the rest of the world accelerate past our once glorious economic accomplishments.

Let’s look at one piece of infrastructure, for example, where the United States is woefully behind most of Europe, Japan, Russia, Canada and, of course, China. If you take 150 MPH as the standard for “high speed” rail (over 90 and under 150 is labeled “higher speed” rail), the United States has vast countryside to cross and zero high speed rail systems to cross any of it. Oh sure, we have plans, some construction and budget allocations, but nothing is operational.

Admittedly, amidst its own charges of corruption, at least the People’s Republic of China has accomplished that which the United States has not: “In the six years since China opened its first high-speed rail line, the country's network has grown to 6,800 miles of dedicated track -- making it by far the world's largest system… Trains cover the 820 miles between China's two largest cities -- Shanghai to Beijing -- in just five hours. Since the line opened in 2011, more than 220 million passengers have traveled the route.” CNN.Money.com, July 8^th. The train pictured above is typical of China’s system.

France (as is most of Europe) is all over this high speed technology, beginning its famous TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse –high speed train) service in 1981, with almost 1300 miles of track today (Spain has almost 1,700 miles of track)… and still building. I remember a recent wonderful, high speed train ride from downtown London, under the Chunnel, to downtown Brussels in about 2 hours. How much faster it was than any flight (considering how hard it is to fly and how far airports in big cities are from downtown).

How can we pretend we are an economic powerhouse, when compared across the board to developed countries everywhere, our infrastructure is comparatively unrepaired and hopelessly antiquated ? In the end, we either believe in ourselves and invest accordingly… or save money, support sloganeering of our greatness but blame others for our failures.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if we do not invest wisely in our future, we won’t really have one!