Boundless Patronage.

• Author: Leef, George
• Position: Highway Heist: America's Crumbling Infrastructure and the Road Forward

Highway Heist: America's Crumbling Infrastructure and the Road Forward

By James T. Bennett 298 pp.; Independent Institute, 2022

Our highway system and our education system have much in common. Both are dominated by government and most people assume that is necessary. In both we find aggressive lobbies that constantly push for more "investment" for the good of the country. We've long had public schooling and our road network has been built and maintained by government. Sure, neither is perfect, but there's really no alternative--or so most people think.

In his recent book Highway Heist, George Mason University economics professor James T. Bennett argues that, concerning roads, the conventional wisdom is wrong. We blundered into government control of roads in the 19th century, and we have repeatedly doubled down on this mistake ever since. An assembly of special interest groups now wields enormous power over transportation policy in Washington and the result is that Americans are saddled with a highway system that is decidedly substandard. It costs too much and delivers too little.

Bennett writes:

Infrastructure in the form of roads and highways has often been seen as an economic boon, enabling producers to reach wider markets, get their products to market most quickly and cheaply, and expand their choice of suppliers; it also gives employees a broader range of choices in where to work and live, and expands options for consumers as well. It is, obviously, essential to a modern economy. But it is not so obvious that these avenues of conveyance need planning, building, and support by government, whether at the federal, state, or local level. Locating such responsibility in the public rather than the private sector means, perforce, their politicization, and consequently the misapplication of resources due to political pressures exerted by and on behalf of influential political actors. Sources of boundless patronage / In his early chapters, Bennett explains how the United States got away from the idea that roads were properly a local concern with scant governmental involvement and adopted the belief that governments need to build and maintain this infrastructure. The story begins with a bit of carelessness at the Constitutional Convention when, with the drafting nearly complete, Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts suggested adding to the power given to Congress to establish post offices the authority to establish "post roads." Exactly what that...