Hmm that's a tough question. I am not sure I trust most local municipalities to fund infrastructure properly. I would much rather have the Feds capabilities and funding.
If infrastructure is federally maintained and a bridge in Pittsburgh collapses, voters in Alaska, California, or Texas aren't really going to care. Or at least not care enough to push their congresscritter to actually do something about it.
If Pittsburgh pays for its own infrastructure (or potentially if it's done at the state level) then voters are far more likely to care and to hold their elected representatives to task.
A separate reason is that a sizeable chunk of people want their tax money to mostly go towards supporting their own city/county/state. They don't want tax money from taxpayers in Mobile, Alabama funding bridges in Vancouver, Washington or vice versa.
Edit: Also if they were federally managed that would likely mean the feds giving that money for the states to manage, and that always comes with strings attached. See, for example, highway funding to states being dependent on raising the minimum drinking age to 21
If infrastructure was all locally funded, wouldn't there be even worse disparities between rich and poor states? From the federal government's point of view, you'd want to invest in weaker areas and bring them up to the same level as the rest of the country.
> From the federal government's point of view, you'd want to invest in weaker areas and bring them up to the same level as the rest of the country
Building bridges to nowhere in Alaska or fancy bridges/tunnels in places with zero population density is extremely unlikely to make these areas a net contribution to the federal budget over the long term - just the opposite.
Arguably extremely rural areas are already oversubsidised and will be never self-sustaining in terms of infrastructure, in terms of just meeting the cost of maintaning roads, power, water, mail delivery infrastructure...
What makes you think the federal government is going to care more? My impression is that the higher up in government you go, the stronger the hold of special interests (special interests work for the rich, not the poor).
These seem like arguments to eliminate the federal government entirely. If the citizens don't want it and don't care about people in other states, then we aren't really a union. Meanwhile, the voter in Alaska has a huge portion of their infrastructure funded by tax payers in other states.
> Also if they were federally managed that would likely mean the feds giving that money for the states to manage
It is done that way today because no state collects enough gas tax to actually fund their own roads and bridges. All money comes with strings attached, it's one of the characteristics of money.
A republic union in military protection and legal/political bridges/agreements.
If the fed is in charge of everything, then there is no union, just a large federal state. This is what we're becoming as everyone places their hope in Congress for solutions.
Like most large countries with a single rule instead of unified states, we're going to regret this more as time goes on. (Excluding countries smaller in population than a single US state)
The Feds do things besides move our money around different States to inefficiently spend on local infrastructure.
If you want to go all in on the eliminating the Federal government, you’d have to also go after the Military, Federal Courts and the Department of State.
If you don't trust local municipalities to fund it properly why would you trust the federal government to do so. The federal goverment is just as politically motivated as a local government and even further removed from the problems than your local municipality.
I think the idea is the Feds are fundamentally more capable at big civil engineering. E.g. the Army Corp of Engineers probably knows a lot more about bridges than your city streets department.
Yeah but the city streets department isn't actually going to repair, replace the bridge. They'll hire an accredited engineering firm who will in fact be at least as competent as the Army Corp of Engineers to build it. Heck the inspections are even hired out for small municipilities. They don't keep on someone on staff to inspect the 5 bridges in typical small rural town rural America.
Or that local private company that won the RFP through a corrupted process because they are friends with the local small town politicians who will cut corners on safety and maintenance while over billing the community.
I think the military stands alone as a semi-competent federal entity, and I don't think anyone is thinking "let's have the military do it" when they're talking about putting infrastructure under federal jurisdiction. Asking ACoE to manage our national infrastructure is like asking the VA to manage our country's healthcare. These things aren't well-aligned with the missions of these organizations.
The big problem with ACOE is that they'll show up and do shit right for the technical definition of right instead of the political one and the local moneyed interests don't like getting steamrolled like that.
Plus there are opportunity costs. You can't fund infinite bridges.
Perhaps you built too many bridges and some of them don't service enough people to warrant replacement or repair. If you're getting free federal dollars, people don't tend to ask about it. High power people might divert funds to their preferred projects. Or maybe the spending is just outright careless.
By keeping the money local, you tie it to local spending and local opportunity cost. There's more oversight, more deliberation, and more care as to how the money is disbursed. They become political talking points, and there's accountability.
Not that there isn't a time and place for federally funded projects, but small town bridges probably aren't it.
For the last two decades local and state governments have been getting things done in the absence of a functional federal government. Obviously this isn't uniformly distributed--some state and local governments probably do suck--but on balance state and local governments are outperforming the federal government so it stands to reason that far more bridges will be maintained if it's the responsibility of state and local governments.
The work is all done by private contractors, so there's probably not a material difference in capabilities (just funding, which could be routed differently).
How do you land on trusting the municipality?