Republicans' 40 Year Refusal To Invest In Infrastructure Begins to Cripple US Economy

The ideological blinders that have guided the Republican party since the Reagan administration are slowly but surely crippling our economy. One area where that is most evident is in our transportation infrastructure where the Republican refusal to consider any federal investment as valid has led to the deterioration of the very pathways that fuel our economy.

In one of its last acts of stupidity for 2017, the Trump administration has cancelled the agreement that the federal government had with the states of New York and New Jersey to not only restore the badly damaged rail tunnels between those two states but also build a new, third tunnel as well to relieve the congestion at that critical rail hub. The agreement meant that the federal government would split the cost of that project with the two states.

This is the second time an agreement to restore this important rail link and the busiest transit hub in the entire country has been sabotaged by Republicans. In 2010, then New Jersey Governor Chris Christie backed out of a similar project, saying the state could not afford it. Instead, he funneled the money saved into the state's own dwindling transportation so he would not have to raise the state's gas tax and position himself for a presidential run.

Amtrak estimates that the two existing tunnels have less than 15 years left before they totally breakdown and there is no guarantee that one or both of these salt-ravaged tunnels might fail earlier. It is estimated that if just one tunnel failed, it would slow rail traffic through the Northeast by 75% and create a regional economic crisis.

The truly sick part of all this is that, if Christie had gone ahead with the plan in 2010, there was a possibility that the new tunnel would be coming into service this year. Instead, it will be another decade before this restoration project will be completed, if at all. It is thought that this current cancellation may be yet another political ploy by Trump and the Republicans and that this will be folded into the so-far mythical Trump infrastructure plan in order to woo Democratic votes. But even that might be a tough sell if Trump's plan is just another corporate giveaway in the form of public-private partnerships.

This isn't the only major rail project that the Trump administration has kiboshed.  In July, the federal government backed out of an agreement with the state of Maryland and the rail company CSX to raise the height of the Howard Street Tunnel in Baltimore in order to allow double-stacked rail cars to easily access the Port of Baltimore. Double-stacked rail cars comprise over 75% of intermodal rail traffic in the country and this will only increase in the future. This will be especially true on the East Coast in both Baltimore and New York as shipping traffic from Asia increases with the opening of the expanded Panama Canal.

This refusal to recognize any valid investment by the federal government, which Republican have engaged in since the Reagan administration, has led to the slow but steady erosion of our transportation infrastructure, which was once the envy of the world. And that erosion will soon begin to cripple this country economically.