Governments that allocate tax dollars the way businessmen allocate revenues enjoy the economic efficiency of totalitarian states. That's not the American way.
On the other hand, if it's good business to run the risk of ruining the Great Lakes, maybe that instead is how Mr. Trump will be remembered.
Note also that this particular Corps of Engineers project, whether it lives or dies, has little impact on the City of Chicago's use for the Ship Canal and the Illinois River, that is, to flush the city's wastewater. At least it's a public use. But if the Trump administration really wanted to spend money on infrastructure for the public good, it would fund the separation of the watersheds so unnaturally connected more than a hundred years ago. And help the Democratic voters of the city clean their wastewater for themselves.
Originally posted in Marx's Political Economy on March 6, 2017.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).