This is Democracy – Episode 142: Infrastructure and Public Works

[0:00:04 Speaker 2] this is Democracy,

[0:00:07 Speaker 0] a podcast about the people of the United

[0:00:09 Speaker 2] States, a podcast about

[0:00:11 Speaker 1] citizenship,

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[0:00:18 Speaker 1] yourself on today’s important issues and how to have a voice

[0:00:21 Speaker 0] in what happens next. Welcome to our new episode of This Is Democracy. This week we’re going to examine one of the most important but often neglected issues in the history of American democracy. The role of infrastructure, investment in infrastructure and public works and the effects that those investments have, whether we’re talking about the railroad highways or broadband, for that matter, uh, what role has infrastructure play in our society? Why is it so important? And how do we think about the current debates about infrastructure in our society? Across our history, we have invested in many moments of economic growth in infrastructure, and we face questions today as to whether, uh, those investments are appropriate, where they should go and what we can do to improve our society through infrastructure investment. We’re joined by someone who’s done some of the most exciting and interesting work on this topic, in particular around the middle 20th century and the role of the New Deal and investments after World War Two. This is Jason Scott Smith. He’s a professor of history at the University of New Mexico. He’s a specialist in the history of capitalism, and that’s of course, a huge topic at his research and teaching range. From the 19th century through the global financial crisis of 2000 and eight, Jason has written a fantastic book that I highly recommend to everyone building New Deal liberalism, the political economy of public works from 1933 to 1956. And it’s fascinating that his book actually goes well beyond the traditional New Deal chronology to examine the role of infrastructure in American society. He’s also written a really helpful and and wonderful concise history of the New Deal, which which also highlights many of these issues. Jason, thank you for joining us today,

[0:02:06 Speaker 1] Jeremy. It’s a pleasure Great to be with you

[0:02:09 Speaker 0] before we turn to our discussion with Jason. Of course, we have our scene setting, or I should hear us today say public works setting a poem from Zachary Suri Zachary, What’s the title of your poem today?

[0:02:21 Speaker 2] What else?

[0:02:22 Speaker 0] Okay, what else Let’s hear it.

[0:02:27 Speaker 2] If bridges bend under the weight of a few 1000 sunrises and bends along back, roads become dust after a few 100 storms. If mountain promenade sag from a few 1000 misty mornings and our Sag Harbor beaches and Sanibel shores become ruins beneath a few 100 hurricanes. If a mother wakes up minutes before morning to carry her disabled daughter downstairs and in the wake of the school bus falls asleep on the sidewalk for perhaps the 100th time. If our city skyline stand hazy and thick with a few 1000 particles per million and band stands in cracking parks like crumbling and lose a few 100 memories in their own floors. If a grandfather cannot glimpse another person’s eyes through his thick glasses for what feels like a few 1000 years and glimpses of our loved ones from the window in the parking lot are no longer enough for perhaps the 100th time, tell me again what else you would have us do with our government.

[0:03:32 Speaker 0] That’s a clarion call, Zachary, what is your What is your poem about?

[0:03:37 Speaker 2] My poem is really sort of about asserting that the purpose of American government is nothing more than to provide for these public works, not just in the traditional sense of bridges and roads, but also in the social programming programs and institutions that allow for growth and prosperity in this country.

[0:03:59 Speaker 0] Right? And that Give everyone an opportunity, we hope. Correct. So So, Jason, this this takes us right to the space of your scholarship. Uh, you’ve written so much about the investments, these extraordinary investments, whether it’s Hoover Dam or

[0:04:16 Speaker 2] roads or rural rural

[0:04:17 Speaker 0] electrification. All these investments that were made in the middle of the 20th century and infrastructure and public works. Uh, and there’s so many examples that you document so well. First of all, what led the US to make these investments at that time and what affects did they have on our society?

[0:04:34 Speaker 1] This is a fantastic, um, set of questions and topics, and I want to do the Internet thing where I just point the finger towards the poem and say this, um um, just kind of underscore that, um, no, I think contextually looking at 20th century investment in infrastructure. You know, the kind of key context is the great Depression and mass unemployment. You know, during the 19 thirties, and then the kind of Cold War context for highway defense spending and other kinds of infrastructural investment. That happened, Um, in the 19 fifties and then afterwards, that we associate more with the Cold War and just kind of taking a step back and thinking about where does this new deal spending on public works come from? You know, for many years traditionally, the interpretation of New Deal public works and this investment in infrastructure was this was, you know, somehow well intentioned effort to to make a tiny dent against unemployment. But you know, they tried, and it was really World War Two that got the United States out of the Great Depression, and I took a different approach to studying these programs. I was inspired by the economist Joseph Schumpeter, who declared in a famous essay, um, the budget is the skeleton of the state, stripped of all misleading ideologies. And if you look, look at where the money goes and that tells you something about a government’s priorities. And if you look at where the new deals money went. Two thirds of New Deal spending, on average, between 1933 and 1939 go to these public works programs, and it’s this enormous, wide, enormous and wide ranging investment. In 1933 the government appropriates $3.3 billion for the Public Works Administration. What does this mean? Relative to the size of the federal government? This is 100 and 65% of federal revenue relative to the size of the economy. It’s 5.9% of GDP 1935 another huge investment, $4.88 billion in 1935 money. That’s 100 and 35% of federal revenues, 6.7% of GDP. You know, these are enormous investments, and it’s to do two things. It’s to build social, useful infrastructure, and it’s to try to make a dent into the mass unemployment that characterize the Great Depression. And this is really effective on both scores. You know, the first term of Roosevelt’s presidency. Unemployment’s cut in half. These programs ultimately build. They spend federal money on infrastructure and all but three of the 3071 counties in the United States. You know, all but three counties in the United States get federal public works spending and so the scale of this investment and we’re just still in the 19 thirties here, building roads, bridges, sewers,

[0:07:28 Speaker 2] hundreds of

[0:07:29 Speaker 1] airports in a time where, you know, people were not flying the way they do today. Just to put it mildly, you know, nearly half of all counties got new school infrastructure, new education, educational facilities, new schools, enormous investment. It’s exceedingly popular, and it’s also really controversial. And I like to point to a public opinion poll that Gallup did in 1939 where they asked Americans, What’s the best thing that Roosevelt has done? And what’s the worst thing that Roosevelt has done? And the number one answer to each question, The best thing. The worst thing is the works Progress Administration, and so this, really, I think, captures, you know, it’s kind of the opposite of the not in my backyard effect. Every community is like the infrastructure that was being built in their locality. You know, new roads, new sewers, new swimming pools, new bridges. These are upgrades and, you know, at the same time it’s controversial to see. I mean, if you’re looking to maximize employment, what are you not doing? You’re not using efficient construction machinery to move Earth. You want 20 people with a shovel? Um, and so that’s harder to organize. You know, the whole notion of should the federal government be employing people? That was a controversial notion. That is a controversial notion and just the kind of visual of trying to organize a lot of people on a project site. You know, people are standing around, people get to take a break. Sometimes people are leaning on shovels. And so the kind of stereotype of the W p a worker was, you know, someone who’s a shovel leaner, Um, you know, does W p a stand for we piddle around. Um, so the these public works programs during the Great Depression they were controversial, and they were also enormously popular. People wanted the projects that were built in their localities. We see this from surveys that were done. We see this from special election results, where communities voted to issue bonds in order to attract federal matching funds for infrastructural projects. You know, this is kind of the opposite of of Newt Gingrich’s federal government. You know, the federal government is not reaching its tentacles into the States into the localities to tell them what to do. States and localities proposed their own public works projects. They sent these plans into Washington, D C. Civil engineers, construction engineers. Federal officials reviewed the plans. They approved them. They disapproved them. You know, they they vetted these plans. And so the projects that were funded and built were ones that were proposed and desired by the places that, um, that wanted these projects, you know, fast forward to 1956 Eisenhower. The Federal Highway Act. You know, um, David Kennedy. Someone you know. Well, um, who taught history for many years at Stanford University. He referred to World War Two as the nation’s greatest public works project. Um, the kind of investment and employment effort that wartime mobilization required. And in the 19 fifties, we see this popular proposal to build a highway network across the United States, the federal highway system, enormous investment, um, popular and again controversial. You know, this is one of the reasons that Barry Goldwater, you know, he slams Eisenhower. You’re a dime store new dealer, right? You’re a poor man’s new dealer. You’re doing what Roosevelt did. Um, I don’t like this federal investment, this federal spending. So it’s controversial to use the federal government in this fashion to invest in infrastructure that makes a national marketplace possible that can ease inequality that can create jobs that can provide employment. It’s controversial to do this, and also it can really create a political constituency delivers at the ballot box, as it did for FDR.

[0:11:14 Speaker 0] Jason, that’s such a wonderful overview of of how revolutionary this investment was in the scale of it, uh, to think about how much money that was at that time and and how it changed people’s lives. You know, I always think back to Lyndon Johnson’s story of, you know, growing up in a home without electricity and these infrastructure investments, they turn the lights on. Quite literally, uh, for him, how can we categorize and understand at least these these effects as controversial as they are for some, how did it change life in America?

[0:11:49 Speaker 1] Well, the texture of life I mean the, you know, think about the network of hydro electric dams built by the new deals. Tennessee Valley Authority. Um, and what this does, you know, I can say a kind of, you know, economics inflected phrase like the cost curve of electricity, you know, bent downwards for over three decades and, you know, usually have to get out the shock paddles to, like, get my students to kind of recover from a statement like that. Um, if you have trouble catching up on your sleep, you can sign up for one of my classes. Um, no. But you know, like a phrase like that if you just pull it apart and kind of sit with it for a minute to make publicly produced electricity increasingly cheaper year after year after year, decade after decade after decade, the kind of impact that this can have on the quality of life. You know? Can you have a refrigerator? Can you have air conditioning? Can you have all sorts of consumer electronic goods that we have come to come to rely on and are part of our lives? Um, you know, can you have a functioning economy that really creates opportunities and jobs by making things like power and electricity more universally available? Um, these are the kind of questions that public officials and politicians and I would add the business community we’re asking and looking for during the middle part of the 20th century.

[0:13:17 Speaker 2] So these programs had such a huge impact on the lives of people living in this period. But at the same time, we today still drive on WP a built roads. I went to elementary school at a building that was built by the W P A. And I swim in the W. P. A swimming pool. But why haven’t that infrastructure been updated in recent years? Why do we still rely on the infrastructure that we built some 75 years ago?

[0:13:45 Speaker 1] That is a great question. And I think, you know, I’ll try a two part answer and hopefully it won’t multiply beyond two parts. As as I try to unpack this. You know, I think two things. One, we normalize infrastructure, you know, we see it all around us, and in a sense we kind of take it for granted. These roads have always been there. This bridge has always been there. This is my school, and it’s been here since 1939. Oh, so the idea that I mean I’ll give you one example that I think kind of brings home how little we recognize the historical legacy of these public works projects. This investment, if you think back for a moment to September September 11th, 2000 and one. George W. Bush flies around the country. He leaves Florida. He flies to Barksdale, Louisiana. He flies, I think, to Omaha and then back to D. C. By the end of the day, his first stop in Barksdale, Louisiana Air Force One lands at an Air Force base that was originally built by the WPA. And you know, I like to joke that, you know, even though Bush was a history major at Yale, I’m willing to wager he didn’t know this. And I mean, this less is a kind of, you know, going a long way for a cheap laugh at W s expense, but rather to kind of emphasize the fact that all of us don’t know that about his journey on Sept, September 11th, 2000 and one that this kind of infrastructure was created in the past and it was a political act to do it. We normalize that, we forget that. And then why hasn’t this investment been made going forward to maintain an upgrade? Um, I think in more recent years I’d point to something that you know. Kevin Kruse and Julian Zelizer have called our attention to these fault lines running through American politics and society, that this stuff has become so politicized questions of how to pay for this investment. Who gets the credit? Who shouldn’t get the credit? This has become a kind of political football that prevented, um, in a number of respects the Obama administration from moving forward with a broader and deeper investment in infrastructure. You know, the kind of long running um, joke is, the New York Times called it of Trump’s Infrastructure Week was a kind of shorthand for the inability of of the presidency to focus on an important task before the American public.

[0:16:02 Speaker 0] Jason, I want to run a an additional explanation by you, which is that in the period you’re discussing, especially the 19 thirties, when the United States military is relatively small, government is not investing in other things beyond predominantly infrastructure. Um, but then, as we get into the Cold War, the military sucks a lot of the discretionary income out of the budget and an even larger proportion obviously goes to entitlements. Is it in some ways, that our politics of infrastructure. Investment of the 19 thirties became the politics of military base building and weapons programs in the fifties and sixties, which do produce some positive benefits beyond the military benefits that contribute to technologies of different kind. They lead to the creation of the Internet. But they do crowd out investment in bridges and roads, and things of that sort is Is that is that a trade off that comes with the Cold War?

[0:16:58 Speaker 1] No, we do see this kind of bifurcation. I was just thinking about Jennifer Middle studs Wonderful book on the military welfare state earlier today. You know, this kind of we see, if you will a kind of warfare state and and we do see this huge investment in a kind of infrastructure of military bases, um, the do bring with them jobs. And, you know, if you think for a moment just about how difficult politically it is too close a military base, you know, this is why Congress would establish these bipartisan, you know, multi part layered committees and commissions to study military bases and to even kind of bring to the surface the notion of closing one. Because these are huge. Guess what? Infrastructural investments that create jobs and bring some measure of prosperity to the communities they’re distributed in,

[0:17:46 Speaker 0] right. But of course, they’re not providing all the civilian needs that traditional infrastructure investments might provide. If we’re thinking about schools, road development, uh, public needs that might not serve, the military needs correct?

[0:18:00 Speaker 1] No, indeed. And I think I just flagged as a shorthand something that I I know you know well, the Eisenhower’s military industrial complex was originally going to be called the military industrial Congressional Complex. You know this kind of inter layer inter linkage between federal spending, military procurement and congressional districts, and the popularity of representatives and being able to attract that kind of spending to their communities? Um, this is something that’s it. It’s deeply political and does have social consequences for the sort of infrastructural investment that’s not being done

[0:18:34 Speaker 0] well said Very well said. And I think there’s a lot to that. So so then how do we think Jason, about the Biden proposed bill? Now he’s proposing to spend beyond, I think, $2 trillion on infrastructure ranging from roads and bridges, the traditional stuff to broadband technology and broadband access. How do we think about that? How does it look in the historical perspective that you’ve studied in such depth?

[0:19:02 Speaker 1] I think, you know, in a lot of ways I mean, I I like to use in the classroom Mark Twain’s The Quote attributed to Mark Twain that history does not repeat itself, but sometimes it does rhyme. And I think if you look at the rhymes and continuity is and the disjunction between our moment and Biden’s proposal and the kind of infrastructure spending we saw in the past, um, we can see some really interesting rhymes. We can see that this kind of infrastructure spending that Biden is proposing that seems to range beyond traditional sorts of infrastructure. But think about what communities and areas get infrastructure, which ones do not the impact of of freeways that were built through minority neighborhoods. Infrastructure has always been deeply political and also had a lot of social consequences for society. You know, the Public Works Administration. It instituted federal employment quotas for African Americans in the South. One of the very first federal affirmative action programs you know, baked in to this New deal. Infrastructure spending, the impact of New Deal spending on public works, construction hospitals, public housing, swimming pools. How these are distributed across different communities, how they are available, healthcare to African American communities to people of color. These things were a part of public works spending in the past, and there, you know, surprisingly enough, And by that I mean not surprisingly, they’re part of public works spending that’s being proposed in the present. I saw Pete Buttigieg. His is quote today. The infrastructure is the foundation that makes it possible for Americans to thrive and live lives of their choosing. You know, I would just guess that a lot of Texans are thinking about the quality and functioning of their state’s power grid. I mean, this is a deeply important subject.

[0:20:53 Speaker 2] What about the redefinition of infrastructure? Or maybe it is not a redefinition, as as you alluded to. But is Biden, in his proposal, expanding the definition of infrastructure to encompass something that maybe goes beyond the traditional infrastructure of daily life and maybe moves towards an environmental reckoning and and and racial reckoning

[0:21:17 Speaker 1] fantastically well said, I mean, I think the kind of climate change dimensions of his plan, thinking about issues of racial justice. With this plan, let’s just take two elements that seem to go beyond. Infrastructure is traditionally construed the proposed investment in building childcare centers in high need areas, the billions of dollars that could go towards quality, affordable home or community based elder care. You know, this seems like, Oh, well, this is like different than infrastructure. But wait a second, you know? Think about this. These programs allow people with kids or with older parents to go to work, and you can see a direct precedent and the Lanham Act. You know, the federal spending during World War Two in providing child care to workers in the defense industry. That program helped women go to work during World War Two. They could put their kids in federally, you know, federally provided childcare centers in order to work on the front lines in the arsenal of democracy.

[0:22:18 Speaker 2] How do businesses and corporations fit into this picture? I mean, in many ways, some of the biggest beneficiaries of the government’s economic intervention and and the creation of W of the W. P. A in the mid 20th century were big businesses and and the defense industry. How How is that changed today? We see a lot of big businesses, even the Chamber of Commerce worrying more about taxes than the economic benefits of infrastructure. How do you see that in relationship to the thirties and forties?

[0:22:53 Speaker 1] Well, all of these things continually are are you know, I mean, this is why they were controversial and are controversial. Someone’s got to pay for this stuff. And, um, you know, if your case of any number of firms you’d prefer that someone else called not your firm be paying for this investment that makes, um, that makes your business possible. You know, I’ve seen Jeff Bezos’s comments about, um, the infrastructure plan in the press over the last day or so. But just think about the infrastructure. The federal government provides that a company like Amazon uses on a regular basis, from the postal system to the roads, the bridges, the airports, the infrastructure required to move things from the app on your phone to the doorstep of your home or mailbox. This is immense, and it comes from somewhere, and it comes from somewhere called the public and the government. These things are right there.

[0:23:54 Speaker 0] So So Jason has as a historian. How do we assess, uh, the effects positive and negative of an infrastructure program if, as you’ve described so eloquently and in such a wonderful detail, if infrastructure contributes not just to economic growth but also to improvements in people’s lives, including the lives of Children during World War Two who had access to childcare, for example, how do we assess? And when we do our cost benefit analysis, how do we know if the money we’re spending is actually producing outcomes that merit that kind of spending?

[0:24:30 Speaker 1] I think that is a fantastic question in their entire, um, branches of economics as a discipline that tried to grapple with this. I mean, I think one thing I can point to the kind of economic history that someone like Alexander Field has done on the 19 thirties and forties, Um, his book with With Yale. I think the great leap forward looks at these public works investments as a kind of investment that makes, um, you know, total factor productivity. You know, the kind of part of productivity that we refer to as innovation possible After World War Two, a kind of jump starts American productivity this investment in infrastructure, so we can try to answer this question economically. But I think even more important or as important, is the impact that a clearly framed political narrative can have. You know, it’s it’s clear you have to tell people the story about how infrastructure matters and remind people of the importance of federal investment in all of our futures, the W. P. A and the P W A. Did this in the 19 thirties with signs outside of each project that said, You know, built by the W P. A. Built by the P W. A. The notion that people who are in favor of infrastructure spending you know the job is not done after the bill is passed. The job is not done after the project is built. The impact of the project in scale on people’s lives is something that needs to be a part of our political and social discourse. You know, you need to recognize it in order to be able to see it. I think Yogi Berra could have said something like that

[0:26:05 Speaker 0] and just just to to really build on that wonderful insight, Jason, is this something that you think is possible now in such a partisan world, can can Biden persuade people who might be skeptical for whatever reason, their partisan background, their own experience, whatever it is that, um, something government has built actually has made their lives better. Well, they believe that.

[0:26:31 Speaker 1] Well, that is an open question. Um, but they certainly won’t believe it if no one tells them. So you have to try and you do have to tell them, and I will say in a kind of we are in this polarized moment in a political system sort of way. But if you look at the polling on this infrastructure planets, I think 70 plus percent of all Americans are in favor of it. And a substantial percentage of Republicans have positive reactions toward this plan as well. Um, so the potential, I think, is there to be at an inflection point politically in terms of infrastructure spending and the ability of people to recognize its importance.

[0:27:08 Speaker 0] And I think that’s precisely Biden’s bet with this is that it will have positive effects and there’ll be effects that people can feel on the model of the new deal that you’ve written about and just described better than anyone else that changing people’s lives and leading them to forget that they were skeptical of this at the start, when they’re benefiting from it and now in favor of these pools and roads and bridges and airports that they’re that they’re using, Zachary does. Does this for your generation, This description, this story and this invocation from Jason about telling this story is this something that that your generation is interested in? Can young people get behind this? Can be this be a calling a Moonshot or another way of putting it, you know, is Jason and and Biden in that sense, so they’re able to make infrastructure sexy. Yeah,

[0:27:56 Speaker 2] I think that Biden has really made the bet that no one else was really willing to make. And that is that the next generation of American political actors is not going to care about rhetoric as much as they do about policy. And I think that that is actually what will pay off because even my peers, who are the most interested in that rhetoric in that political infighting can get behind policy, and I can see that rhetoric for what it is empty unless you have that policy framework behind it. So I think, Yes, Biden is making a bet that no one else would make. But I think that in the end it will win out.

[0:28:38 Speaker 0] And what do you think, Jason?

[0:28:40 Speaker 1] Oh, man, that’s great. I mean, you know that this is a moment where, you know, it’s very difficult, and I don’t think anyone should take something like the New Deal and just run it back two point. Oh, in our present moment, we’re a different society or a different nation where in a different climate, um, it’s a different moment. But where can the new deal be inspirational? It is in this kind of public spirited, large scale investment in our present and in our future. And this is the lesson I think of the New Deal and the Great Depression is that the federal government can be an enormous help to people that is in need. You know, you need the political will to do it, but the ability is there. I think we’re seeing a kind of lived experience of the vaccine rollout that I think might be convincing in terms of what the federal government can do in making a positive impact on our society and its future.

[0:29:36 Speaker 0] Chasing that so well said. And it’s it’s a perfect note to close on. You know this better than anyone else. When, when When Americans look back on their lives, they usually don’t remember the political positions they took. But they remember certain experiences. And so many of the experiences that we all have as citizens are are defined by the investments. Are governments made in the environment we live in? Do we have access to two roads? Are we able to travel? Are we able to get access to products? And these are things that individuals can’t change. This is this is the role government, government plays and so many of our lives. I come back again to Lyndon Johnson’s story. I ask my students quite often, Can you imagine living without power? Well, actually, a month ago they had to for a few days and and it wasn’t good, it wasn’t good. They don’t want to go back to that right?

[0:30:22 Speaker 1] I hope they got an extension on any assignments they had to.

[0:30:25 Speaker 0] Well, they were very upset with me. They thought I had caused this crisis as an experiment as a real as a real lived historical experiment. And I promised them I hadn’t, Jason. But I’m not sure they believe infrastructure is so crucial. Jason, thank you so much for joining us and sharing your your deep research and insights and showing us how that historical research is so relevant for thinking about probably one of the most important policy issues of our time. So thank you so much. Jason.

[0:30:53 Speaker 1] Jeremy Zachary. Thank you. Pleasure.

[0:30:56 Speaker 0] And Zachary, Thank you for your poem and your questions. As always, most of all thank you to our loyal listeners for joining us for one more episode of this is democracy. Mhm.

[0:31:09 Speaker 2] Mm, Mhm. Mhm. This podcast is produced by the Liberal Arts I. T s Development Studio and the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. Mhm. The music in this episode was written and recorded by Harris Codini. Stay tuned for a new episode Every week you can find this is democracy on apple podcasts, Spotify and stitcher.

[0:31:33 Speaker 1] See you next