President Biden’s infrastructure plan — some history and context

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Jeff Cranson: Hello, this is the Talking Michigan Transportation podcast. I'm Jeff Cranson, director of communications at the Michigan Department of Transportation.

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Cranson: Today, I’m going to be talking about President Biden’s American Jobs Plan and how it relates to our country's desperately needed investments in infrastructure, and a very special guest, friend, and colleague, Andy Doctoroff, who you might know from previous podcasts as the point person for the governor's administration on the building of the Gordie Howe International Bridge, is going to be here to talk about an op-ed guest column that he had published in the Detroit Free Press this week that takes a look at Biden’s infrastructure plan in the context of history, and where the U.S. has been on investing in infrastructure, especially transportation infrastructure in the past. So, Andy, thanks for taking the time to do this.

Andy Doctoroff: Hi, Jeff. Thanks for asking me on. I’m happy to do it.

Cranson: So, let's start first, I guess, with, you know, some of the history that got you interested in this. You've been teaching a class at U of M sort of along these lines, and between that and the past—what is it now? Seven years, eight years that you've been working on the Gordie Howe International Bridge it's really piqued your interest in logistics and infrastructure in all ways.

Doctoroff:  Oh yeah, the work that I’ve done on the Gordie Howe International Bridge has been so fascinating on so many different levels, and just out of curiosity, it's opened my eyes to infrastructure generally and, you know, one thing leads to another. I created this course because I was so interested in this, and now everywhere I look I’m seeing infrastructure, I’m thinking about infrastructure because it's such an important subject.

Cranson: I can relate to that having come from, as you know, a career in journalism into communications for transportation, I tend to look at things differently now too and see—just so keenly aware of how transportation touches our lives like from the minute we leave the house until the minute we get home every day.

Doctoroff: Yeah, so—

Cranson: Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Doctoroff: No, yeah, and I was just going to say if you broaden it out to not just transportation infrastructure, but all types of infrastructure then it's like anywhere you look there is infrastructure that directly impacts how we live.

Cranson: Yeah, absolutely. You make reference to that with a famous Churchill quote, I think, and that would be that would be relevant to not leaving our house, but what we do in our homes, right?

Doctoroff: Right, right, plumbing, sewers, it's all part of making sure that our standard of living is what it should be, and, you know, it's not sexy, but it's real-world stuff.

Cranson: So, talk about how we got here. I mean, you've researched this, and you make references to the earliest parts of the republic and what Jeffersonians believed and what really took until, you know, later years, I think with Lincoln and the railroads, and then certainly getting into the 20th century and FDR's belief in investments and all kinds of infrastructure, but why do you think it took us so long as a country to realize how important this is?

Doctoroff: Well, I’m not actually sure we do realize how important it is, but I totally get your question, and, you know, going back to the beginning of the country and throughout our history, there has always been this conflation of infrastructure on the one hand and the power of government on the other, and that any political group, any political party that had reason to be concerned about or fearful of a powerful government, whether that's a powerful federal government, a powerful state government, or even a powerful local government has always had issues with infrastructure because, you know, if that government, but let's talk about the federal government specifically, was going to invest in infrastructure that would necessarily in view of these folks, and back in the early 19th century it was the Jeffersonian democrats, that would increase their fear that the government itself was going to become more powerful. Then the next question would be, well, if there's a powerful central government what implications would that have? And it wasn't for instance a great extension of thinking to say that would be a threat to slavery, and that's why the southern states, in particular, really did not go along with supporting internal improvements by the federal government.

Cranson: I think that was a salient observation on your point, and that reference was exactly right. So, tell me this, and I know this is the kind of thing that's just purely speculation, but if Jefferson were around today and heard that there are proponents in Washington and other quarters of what's called ‘devolution,’ meaning let's take the federal government, the Highway Trust Fund, all the things that USDOT does for transportation and devolve it to the states and put the states in charge of all of that. Is that something you think he would support?

Doctoroff: I mean, Jefferson’s a historical legacy is a really complicated one, but on balance I would say no. Jefferson’s ideal that you hear about was the agrarian farmer, independence, small government. Jefferson aligned himself very closely, and if you take a look at the election, say of 1800, with the southern states and you can see the, you know, regionalism in our American politics going way back on, you know, until that point in time. That small government, you know, less powerful, anti-Hamiltonian kind of orientation was very much one that President Jefferson adopted and that, frankly, Jefferson, you know, espoused during the Washington administration when he was always in a state of conflict with Alexander Hamilton.

Cranson: Well, exactly, I guess that's my point that Hamilton would be a in favor of a strong central government role, something like the Highway Trust Fund, and all the things that the Federal Highway Administration and other USDOT agencies do so that we have uniformity in a transportation system across the country, as opposed to those people now who would be that version of states’ rights people who say let the states figure it out for themselves, let them raise the money and figure out how to spend it.

Doctoroff: Yeah, and the interesting thing, of course, is and you're alluding to this, or you're actually saying it, is that the same conflict that kind of drove the bitterness between Alexander Hamilton and Jefferson to a meaningful degree is what we're experiencing today with ideological battles over the size of government.

Cranson: The problem is that these don't break down necessarily. I mean, we talk about red and blue states, but really these divides are often urban and rural even within certain states.

Doctoroff: Right.

Cranson: Well, so, talk a little bit more, I guess, about your research. I mean, you and I definitely agree that this is something that—Biden's plan is ambitious. I think more perhaps more ambitious than anybody anticipated, especially the climate aspects. What do you think? I mean, you make the point that we've never been so bitterly divided and done something significant like this on infrastructure, so, I mean, was that your way of saying fat chance?

Doctoroff:  No, that was my way of saying that the Democrats and President Biden have to be really smart, that there's a small margin for error here, that if you take a look at, you know, major infrastructure initiatives in our country's history they have usually, if not always, been when one pro-government party has a pretty good control of congress, and that party is in alignment with a president who believes in a strong central government, and, you know, that is just not the situation we have now. We have, yes, the Democrats controlling, you know, the Senate and the House but barely. My point was if you take a look at a history of infrastructure spending there has never been a major infrastructure bill passed under these types of circumstances, so, you know, my instinct is better not to overreach, better to have political consensus, better to preserve the majority that does exist using the power that is available rather than making yourself vulnerable to criticisms that the infrastructure bill is, you know, a liberal wish list, which is why you're hearing a lot of folks saying this is not a real infrastructure bill. This is stuff that is merely packaged as infrastructure. The definition of infrastructure is being grotesquely expanded to apply to things that aren't, you know, roads or bridges, which are conventionally understood to be infrastructure or public works. Infrastructure clearly has a definition in my mind that's much broader than roads and bridges. The question is how broad, how expansive is that definition. We don't want this bill to be susceptible to attack that it goes too far, given that history of rarely passed infrastructure initiatives. When they are passed it's only when there is a very broad consensus in congress, you know, a consensus that's basically created by a power that has a firm—I mean a party that has a firm grip on power.

Cranson: So, you make the point, I mean going to that definition, and I think the potential for the word infrastructure to still, you know, continually be evolving and be defined that, you know, the word itself in this application isn’t that old, relative to our history.

Doctoroff: Yeah, if you actually want to look at the history of the word infrastructure, I say in that column that its etymology can be traced to 1927, but really it wasn't used in earnest until the 1990s, believe it or not. Even back then, like when the Wall Street Journal was talking about President Clinton’s infrastructure aspirations, they would use the word infrastructure in quotes suggesting, of course, that it's a new word, an unfamiliar word with which its readers, you know, might have trouble on that. It's readers might have trouble understanding.

Cranson: That's really interesting. So, I like that you also made reference to the Romans, and what we know from basic history was a far-reaching, visionary thought of what roads would be even then and, you know, the 250,000 miles. That came up in op-ed in newspaper in one of our Pleasant Peninsulas a few years back, and that question of, you know, why if the Romans could do it, can't we do it now? I loved the answer from one of our policy analysts, you know, who said, ‘well, yeah, if you have slave labor and you can, you know, use whatever resources you want as a government and tax at will then, sure, you can do that.’ That kind of goes to the heart of why this is so difficult, doesn't it?

Doctoroff: Oh, absolutely, in my class one of the things that I teach all the time is let's never forget the type of government that we have versus other governments that are more easily able to invest in infrastructure. The Roman Empire was just that, an empire. It was not a democracy, you know, obviously, after Julius Caesar. Therefore, it was easily able to marshal the resources through slavery, through taxation to build its huge network of roads. Similarly, in China's Belt, you know, and road initiative they're investing trillions, but it is certainly not a democracy. It is an autocracy, so infrastructure in democracies is much more difficult to cultivate and develop because of the political problems that we talk about that, again, go back to the Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian days.

Cranson: So, what's your personal theory, I mean, as things evolved and the arguments changed, going back to Hamilton and Jefferson, how we got to where we are now, in this difficulty at the federal level and pretty much every state, you know, everybody says, ‘oh, there's bipartisan support for infrastructure.’ It's like well, yeah, there's maybe bipartisan belief that we need it, but there's definitely not any bipartisan support for how to fund it for the fact that that we don't do enough. User fees and people just want so desperately to believe that they pay enough, and that the only reason that the roads are falling apart are because either the DOT and the various local agencies don't know what the heck they're doing, or, I guess, by extension the contracting community doesn't know what it's doing. How do we get out of that?

Doctoroff: Well, first of all, I agree with your premise that all of these accusations and justifications for not spending more money on our roads, etc. are fictions. There's no evidence in my opinion anywhere that I’ve seen that merely doing more, being more efficient, as it were, that we could fill the huge infrastructure funding gap that exists. If you ask for my theory, and let's call it a speculative theory, it all goes down to opportunism of some of our ‘leaders,’ I’ll put that word in quote, who want to appeal to constituencies in a way that's not intellectually honest the issue will be demagogued so that, you know, people believe that there can be something for nothing, or that the problem isn't what it truly is. At its core, it goes down to leadership and what it takes to be a good responsible, thoughtful leader, and whether you're placing those values, the values of intellectual honesty, above, you know, the value of staying in power, maintaining power, appealing to constituencies on an emotional level so you can have power. I think that, you know, in the last generation or generation and a half at least, you know, there have been a lot of again putting quotes the word ‘leaders’ who have erred on the side of appealing to popular will rather than cultivating voters so that they're more informed and less driven by emotions or misinformation.

Cranson: Are you disappointed that Secretary Pete Buttigieg and the president have pretty much taken off the table—I mean, setting aside the value and looking at the corporate tax structure and especially, you know, how offshore taxing is factored into this, that they seem to take off the table vehicle miles traveled, you know, or the gas tax, which hasn't been raised at the federal level since 1993. What do you think about that?

Doctoroff: Well, I guess I don't know that I’m informed enough to judge that. I mean, you know, politics, as you know, is the art of the possible, and I just don't know what's possible. I don't know how to weigh competing political imperatives. As a result, that type of accommodation might be necessary in order for political viability. I just feel that if I were to wade into that type of water I might be saying something that is ill-informed.

Cranson: Well, that would set you apart from many people already, the fact that you don't want to do that.

Doctoroff: Well, look, I just believe that what has happened which is, you know, Biden has said, ‘hey, the federal government has to step it up and play a leading role when it comes to funding infrastructure, and that they’re going to have to be new revenues raised to do that.’ That's pretty darn, I don't know if I’ll use the word brave, but that's definitely, you know, taking a stand that I admire.

Cranson: It's certainly bold.

Doctoroff: Yeah.

Cranson: Yeah, it is and it's true. I mean, both from the jobs that can be created standpoint and sustained, supported, and from the fact that this is something we owe future generations. I mean, our grandparents and great-grandparents did this for us, built these things, you know, and what are we doing? People can talk about, you know, bonding, you make a reference to the bonds for the Erie Canal. They can talk about various debt that has been incurred over the years to build infrastructure. That is good debt. That's nothing compared to the debt we're leaving our children by not fixing what's here and by leaving them to take care of these bridges, and roads, and dams, and other structures.

Doctoroff: Yeah, and the interesting thing is how long these bridges and roads were originally designed to last, right? I mean, they have a certain they have certain lives. When many of them were originally constructed, you know, the politicians in the political system came up with enough money to fund them, but many of them right now are now degrading, becoming not usable, at the same time. There simply is not the money available to maintain what we already have, let alone, you know, invest money in new infrastructures for a 21st century economy. So, we really are at a critical time where we've got this choice: do we invest, or do we saddle our kids and our kid’s kids with infrastructure that is so degraded that it not just is unusable, that it actually hurts our economy and the opportunities that are going to be available to our children and grandchildren. That's where we are right now. The timing is critical, and that's underscored by, you know, all the independent reports, like from the American Society of Civil Engineers, that rate our roads and other classifications of infrastructure. We're doing very poorly, and part of that is because old infrastructure assets are now eroding and ending their useful lives.

Cranson: Yeah, well said. You also make a reference, and you hear a lot about this to China and what they're doing and the investments they've made in recent history and continue to make, especially when it comes to high-speed rail. As you well know, the first stimulus under President Obama, the American Rescue and Recovery Act put money into high-speed rail. Michigan was one of the states that accepted that money. Some of our neighbors didn't, and that's what's making way for 110 mile per hour service between Detroit and Chicago. But I get the feeling that when people hear that about China and they hear how well it's working and what it means and could mean ultimately to the environment, and heaven knows China has environmental issues, that that's not enough. That people still think, you know, what I’m never going to care about transit and high-speed rail because, you know, I’m all about my car. I mean, it's kind of a chicken and the egg thing, but if we made those investments and showed how it can work, and how many people can be transported, and give you the freedom to work or read or do other things, you know, while you're in transit, I mean, do you see that changing?

Doctoroff: Well, I think one I’d like to address the premise of the question. Just so we're on the same page there, I don't think China's Belt and Road Initiative is a model initiative. I think that when you have infrastructure being promoted and funded for geopolitical reasons, when it's not subjected to community input, when it's very top down without accountability elsewhere in the system, there are a lot of bad investments, there are a lot of mistakes that made. We can get into this later in more detail offline, I guess, but the Belt and Road Initiative is susceptible to a lot of legitimate criticism, so just wanted to make that clear even though—

Cranson: No, I agree, I guess I was thinking more in terms of just believing in the technology and being willing to invest in that, but you're absolutely right. I mean, the lack of input, community involvement, something you've become very familiar with because of the Gordie Howe International Bridge and how important that is, that is not a priority there.

Doctoroff: Yeah, but to your point of the question, I think, is that can we get there? I see absolutely no reason why we can’t. I mean, we live in a society that relies heavily on cars. I certainly don't suggest that cars aren’t, you know, really important for many of us and it will always be that way. But there's lots of studies that show and lots of, you know, experience that demonstrates that when people are exposed to alternatives that their eyes are open to those alternatives, people's reliance on vehicles, their own vehicles, which are very expensive to maintain decreases. It's really a question of creating, again, back to the word, infrastructure that allows people to open their eyes to a new way of thinking about transportation, mobility, and the like. Right now, we can't imagine a world with, you know, electric powered vehicles or autonomous vehicles that are supported by, you know, new infrastructure, but if that new infrastructure were in place there's no question in my mind that we would not only adapt to it, but we would embrace it at least to a meaningful extent.

Cranson: Yeah, no, I completely agree. Well, Andy, this has been good. This is an ongoing conversation, I think, as things continue, and we see where the president gets and what the compromises turn out to be maybe we can talk about this more. I think it's great fodder for your class I think, if you continue this at the University of Michigan, and this is something that you continue to have an interest in doing I think it can be very informative.

Doctoroff: Yeah, I love it and I’ll be teaching next semester, and, you know, Jeff, frankly, I love having these conversations with you, not only publicly like this, but I love talking to you about infrastructure and transportation because of your investment and expertise, and if only other people dove into it as much as you do.

Cranson: Well, thanks. We'll talk again.

Doctoroff: Thanks a lot, Jeff. Talk soon.

Cranson: Thank you again for listening to this week's edition of the Talking Michigan Transportation podcast. I would like to thank Randy Debler and Corey Petee for engineering this week's podcast. To subscribe to show notes and more, go to Apple podcasts and search for Talking Michigan Transportation.