The headline and subheadline say it all.
Funding Freeze Threatens an Economic Lifeline in Chicago
Washington’s move halts plan to extend a train line into a depressed pocket of the city
Except that Washington’s move needn’t halt anything. Chicago could reallocate its spending priorities and fund the extension itself.
There’s no political will to do so, though; too many politicians in the city are addicted to Federal dollars, and apart from that, they benefit personally politically from bringing in the pork rather than spending city money.
Too, relying on Federal dollars—the taxes paid in by citizens from elsewhere in the State and especially by citizens of other States—lets city politicians avoid the drudgery of worrying about, and doing something about, the costs of such a project. And that benefits the politicians’ union employers donors.
A major factor in those costs is labor, which is driven by Federal construction dollar strings mandating union wage rates whether the builders are union shops or not. Allowing non-union wages would greatly reduce the cost of any construction project, including this train line extension.
One small example of the city officials’ shortsightedness on the revenue side is this from Wendy Jones, who runs a nonprofit that mentors young men:
The Red Line would have been a huge improvement, and it probably would have increased the property value here[.]
That increase in property value would have increased property tax revenues for the city. There would be sequelae, too, were the city managers ever to get serious about solving its crime problem: an influx of businesses, with attendant jobs, into the area fed by the train line extension, with an associated increase in income and business tax revenue to the city.
All of that would be in addition to all the construction jobs that building the extension would entail, and would still be available were the city to spend its own money on the construction.
As a bonus, the city spending its own money on the project would reduce the city’s dependency on the Federal government and reduce the latter’s leverage over the former.
That it’s a widespread and longstanding misconception that halting Federal construction funds transfers must perforce halt construction projects only demonstrates the knee-jerk response to and dependency on Federal funding that too many on both sides—politicians and citizens—have settled into.
The Federal government isn’t the only level of governing where spending discipline and reallocations are necessary.