In October, Rep. Chip Cravaack, R-Minn., made news by opposing a massive public-works project in a certain district: his own.
Even though a high-speed rail line from the Twin Cities to Duluth would create thousands of construction jobs, the project would be too expensive and too inefficient, said Cravaack, whose district includes Duluth.
"Instead of pursuing a new rail line, let's first spend our time, efforts and limited resources fixing what we have," he suggested.
Cravaack was right, said a Herald editorial. "And maybe, just maybe, that cause of 'fixing what we have' can inspire the nationwide, bipartisan and determined consensus that high-speed rail clearly doesn't have."
Cravaack, by the way, is a conservative Republican. So when he suggests that the federal government should spend time and money to fix America's crumbling infrastructure, Democrats should listen.
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But don't take the Herald's word for it. Though they're divided by countless issues, Republicans and Democrats should "be willing to take the one politically feasible step that could help mend the economy quickly: an accelerated program of infrastructure repairs," wrote Robert Frank, a Cornell University economist, on Saturday in The New York Times.
"People in both parties already agree that these improvements are needed -- even apart from their impact on employment. ...
"The most important single step toward a brighter future is to repair our economy as soon as possible. And one of the surest ways to do so is a large and immediate infrastructure refurbishment program."
Frank's column makes a strong case. For one thing, an infrastructure program is not simply make-work to help the economy. It's both crucial -- every study of the issue points to billions or even trillions of dollars in much-needed repairs -- and doable, given the desperate-for-work labor force and the easy access to both money and materials.
After all, "with much of the world still in a downturn, the required materials are cheap," Frank writes.
"If we wait, they'll become more costly. Annual interest rates on 10-year Treasury notes have fallen below 1.5 percent. Those rates will also be higher if we wait. So it's actually our failure to undertake these projects that's saddling our grandchildren with gratuitously larger debt."
It's true that an infrastructure-repair campaign would require taking on more debt. But it's also true that no other project boasts such a positive upside, not only in putting people back to work but also (and more important) helping the country's growth prospects for the long term.
Providing a network of good roads, bridges and airports is a basic -- not extravagant -- function of government. That's because speeding the movement of goods and people has a transformative effect, as the history of the interstate highway system shows.
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But the key here is not these arguments. The key is that Democrats and Republicans across the political spectrum agree on these arguments, a consensus that in modern America is exceptionally rare.
Both President Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney should embrace this idea and campaign on it. Then in 2013, whoever wins the election should follow through on their pledge and build a bipartisan consensus around infrastructure repair.
As the headline over Frank's column put it, "Repairing roads can end all kinds of gridlock." Senators and congressmen, pay attention.
-- Tom Dennis for the Herald
