Sometimes a bargain is just too good to pass up.
We’ve all been there. Sometimes it happens at the market where a coupon entices us to toss an unplanned item into the cart. Sometimes it’s that bigger car that’s not that much more once you figure in the rebate. Sometimes it happens at the mall, when an outfit or a piece of furniture at 80 percent off is just irresistible.
Gov. Dannel Malloy came to one of those moments last week when he made an economic development decision that sounded like a transportation decision. He signed off on investing $113 million of the state’s precious cash to build the $572 million New Britain-Hartford busway project. That’s 80 percent off the list price, if the state were to go it alone. But of course if the state had to pay for the busway, there’d be no project, not even a conversation.
The lure here is simply the short-term rush of what’s viewed as free money. But, as we all know, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
Sure, the true believers will tout this decision as a breakthrough moment in the state’s transportation policy. They claim the busway will remove 5,000 cars from I-84, making commuting easier and enticing companies to locate in Hartford. Some wanted a commuter rail solution and got a study instead. Either way, it’s the same argument being made coast-to-coast by earnest urban planners applying a 20th Century solution that doesn’t fit 21st Century conditions.
At the same time, Malloy OK’d seeking another quarter-billion dollars from the feds for the next stage of the New Haven-Springfield high-speed rail line, another project that promises much but is likely to deliver huge operating losses for decades to come.
Recall that the rail money being sought is available only because Florida looked at a similar deal and calculated the long-term losses outweighed the short-term gain. It declined to move ahead with a high-speed rail scheme the feds considered a higher priority than Connecticut’s. Ohio also declined to move ahead with a rail project that stood no chance of paying its way.
Malloy made a different call. To be fair, it’s a close call. The feds designed it that way. They’re still trying to stimulate the economy and create jobs, both worthy goals, as well as perform some misguided social engineering. Jobs have been moving to the suburbs for years yet the feds are determined to stick with their strategy of center city to center city transportation.
The calculation on both projects revolves around whether the state’s share returns enough “free” money to be worthwhile.
In explaining the decision, Malloy pointed squarely at the immediate jobs this project will create. And it’s hard to argue against quickly injecting an extra half-billion dollars into central Connecticut’s slow economy. It’s simply an economic development coup made possible by the project’s shovel-ready status.
The jobs will be welcome in the hard-hit construction sector, as Brad Kane’s story (Page 9) details. But let’s not lose sight of the real costs of these projects. This money isn’t free — it’s your federal tax dollars at work. And in these two cases, it’s bad federal policy luring states into bad decisions.
The governor is sincere about creating jobs. But getting there by saddling the state with ill-advised projects that will require massive subsidies for years to come seems a deal with the devil.
Malloy’s refusal to kick the state’s budget problems down the road, as his predecessors did, is the cornerstone of his governorship. It’s good policy; it’s good leadership. It’s unfortunate that he and his advisers couldn’t see why it was important to apply the same logic here. By saddling the state with major costs downstream, he’s passed a new budget headache to his successors and to Connecticut taxpayers.
