David Brooks thinks he knows why projects like the trans-Hudson tunnel can't be built-- maybe, but I'd be surprised

One of our suspects for what's wrong with everything today: James Thurber's seemingly innocent unicorn (don't be fooled!)

by Ken

Just recently I wrote about New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's unilateral decision to shut down the project, some 20 years in the planning, with some $500 million already spent and actual construction about to begin, to build a new tunnel under the Hudson River connecting the states New Jersey and New York. I noted in passing that " hugely expensive infrastructure transformations whose payoff will spread over multiple generations to come have become harder and harder to implement in an era where it has become increasingly difficult to rally public support for payoffs that aren't immediate."

It turns out, I regret to say, that this issue is also on the mind of NY Times mush-brained and -mouthed columnist David Brooks. Our Davy began a recent column called "The Paralysis of the State" thusly:

Sometimes a local issue perfectly illuminates a larger national problem. Such is the case with the opposition of the New Jersey governor, Chris Christie, to construction of a new tunnel between his state and New York.

Now rather than just blurt out our Davy's "findings," I thought it would be more entertaining to ease into it with a multiple-choice quiz.

The question: Who do you suppose our Davy has figured out is responsible for the present-day impossibility of funding projects like the trans-Hudson tunnel?

Who's really responsible for keeping these plumbers from gainful employment on the trans-Hudson tunnel project? Our Davy B has "the answer."

(a) Nancy Reagan's astrologer, who predicted it would be a bad idea

(b) Abraham Lincoln, who freed the slaves

(c) FDR, who thought it would be a bad idea

(d) unicorns

(e) We're off to see the wizard,
the wonderful Wizard of Oz,
because, because, because, because,
because of the wonderful things he does.

(f) those goddamn unions

This question may seem difficult to answer without more information, but let's see if we can't get somewhere by process of elimination. Let's examine the options one by one:

(a) This is instantly doubtful, in that astrological anticipation seemed important to Nancy R primarily as it affected the potential well-being of her Ronnie, which isn't at issue here.

(b) Probably you went to some damn public school if you think Lincoln freed the slaves, whereas he freed only the slaves in states that were still at war against the United States. If you were home-schooled the way God intended, you might know this. Or then again, you might not. Besides, all right-thinking people know now that slavery as an institution as hopelessly passé. Who doesn't know now that it's cheaper to rent than to buy? (Slaves, after all, had to be housed and fed, however poorly. Their hired-hand successors are on their own, and can go screw themselves as far as the modern-day plantation owners are concerned.)

(c) As you'll see, FDR is going to be dragged into this -- not, however, as a defendant, but as a witness for the prosecution. (Yes, our Davy is going to be citing the devil Roosevelt in support of his case.)

(d) Really now! "The unicorn is a mythical beast," as James Thurber established in his definitive study, "The Unicorn in the Garden."

(e) For Pete's sake, this is merely a ditty of a song, and suggests that someone here really and truly isn't taking this whole issue seriously. Nevertheless, there's an underlying piece of good advice (at least from the neocon standpoint): Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

(f) Well, bingo! Of course you could have gotten here by an easier path. Is there anything in the modern world that isn't the fault of the goddamn unions? Not hardly.

In this case, specifically, the villain is public-employee unions. (Private-sector unions, after all, have already been pretty well castrated.)

Christie argues that a state that is currently facing multibillion-dollar annual deficits cannot afford a huge new spending project that is already looking to be $5 billion overbudget. His critics argue that this tunnel is exactly the sort of infrastructure project that New Jersey needs if it's to prosper in the decades ahead.

Both sides are right. But what nobody seems to be asking is: Why are important projects now unaffordable? Decades ago, when the federal and state governments were much smaller, they had the means to undertake gigantic new projects, like the Interstate Highway System and the space program. But now, when governments are bigger, they don't.

The answer is what Jonathan Rauch of the National Journal once called demosclerosis. Over the past few decades, governments have become entwined in a series of arrangements that drain money from productive uses and direct it toward unproductive ones.

New Jersey can't afford to build its tunnel, but benefits packages for the state's employees are 41 percent more expensive than those offered by the average Fortune 500 company. These benefits costs are rising by 16 percent a year. . . .

Daniel DiSalvo, a political scientist at the City College of New York, has a superb survey of the problem in the new issue of National Affairs. DiSalvo notes that nationally, state and local workers earn on average $14 more per hour in wages and benefits than their private sector counterparts. A city like Buffalo has as many public workers as it did in 1950, even though it has lost half its population. . . .

Now I'm out of my depth here, but I've got a pretty good hunch that so is our Davy (I'm willing to offer this without finder's fee as a title when our Davy writes a memoir of his silly existence: Out of My Depth) -- and probably so is that "superb" surveyor Mr. DiSalvo, writing after all in a house organ of neocon-ism. I can't help feeling that what we're getting isn't "the answer" (not "an answer," note, or "a possible answer) but a set of carefully cooked numbers put together as an answer in search of a question, in other words the customary right-wing way of opining.

I'm not suggesting that there is no issue with public-employee unions -- which, by the way, is where FDR is dragged in. "Through much of the 20th century, staunch liberals like Franklin Roosevelt opposed public sector unions. George Meany of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. argued that it is 'impossible to bargain collectively with government.'" When right-wing ideologues start quoting FDR and George Meany, I think at minimum a bit of social and historical context is called for.

And the point here is that "private sector managers . . . have an incentive to push back against union requests," whereas "government managers . . . have little incentive to resist union demands." Our Davy talks about "ideally, some balance [being] found between the needs of workers and companies" in the private sector, but of course that isn't what happens or what people who think his way want to see happen -- they want to see people who work for a living crushed.

And so we eventually arrive at the conclusion:

The end result is sclerotic government. Many of us would be happy to live with a bigger version of 1950s government: one that ran surpluses and was dexterous enough to tackle long-term problems as they arose. But we don’t have that government. We have an immobile government that is desperately overcommitted in all the wrong ways.

This situation, if you’ll forgive me for saying so, has been the Democratic Party’s epic failure. The party believes in the positive uses of government. But if you want the country to share that belief, you have to provide a government that is nimble, tough-minded and effective. That means occasionally standing up to the excessive demands of public employee unions. Instead of standing up to those demands, the party has become captured by the unions. Liberal activism has become paralyzed by its own special interests.

The antigovernment-types perpetually cry less, less, less. The loudest liberals cry more, more, more. Someday there will be a political movement that is willing to make choices, that is willing to say "this but not that.”

Someday.

Ah yes, these are the "reasonable" middlemen. As I say, there might be points here worth discussing, but discussing doesn't seem to be what the DiSalvos and Davy B's of the world are interested in doing. Or else they might be able to find some other even minor contributory factor to the problem of large-scale infrastructure investment.

No, they know what their answer is: "damn unions." Their job is to find questions they can tack it onto.

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