In many European countries, along with Japan and Australia, the national parliament can be dissolved and members of the legislative branch put up for snap elections. Were a legal mechanism akin to this available to Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R), a decision by her to dissolve the Alabama legislature, along with much of the state's executive branch, would strike many as a reasonable action given what has transpired in state government in recent years, along with the shenanigans that continue to ensue in the Yellow Hammer State.
The Speaker of the Alabama House of Representatives is currently serving out a four year prison sentence after being convicted in 2016 of 12 felony violations of state ethics law. Former Gov. Robert Bentley (R), Ivey’s predecessor, resigned last year after pleading guilty to two misdemeanor charges of knowingly spending campaign contributions for personal use, along with failure to file a major contribution report.
Then there is the well-known saga of twice-ousted Alabama Supreme Court Judge Roy Moore, whose scandal-ridden and ultimately failed campaign to replace former Senator and now U.S. Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, handed a U.S. Senate seat in a very red state to Democrats. Simply put, the political situation in Alabama is a hot mess.
And yet, controversial and questionable decision making on the part of powerful Alabama government officials persists. Take the current proposal to build a third bridge connecting Alabama’s Gulf coast to the rest of the state.
Alabama Transportation Department director John Cooper, who was a vocal cheerleader for the tax hikes being pushed by Gov. Bentley three years ago, has proposed spending $30 million in taxpayers dollars on a third bridge, with all of the risk and cost borne by state taxpayers despite the fact that the company that owns one of the two existing bridges over Alabama’s intracoastal waterway, American Roads, is already investing its resources to expand existing capacity and is offering to partner with the state to build the third bridge.
As Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist explained in a November 2017 column in the Birmingham News and Huntsville Times, entering into another public-private partnership with Americans Roads would be a superior approach that is less costly to Alabama residents than the proposal to have the new bridge funded entirely by taxpayers:
“Why would anyone think government should blow 30 million tax dollars on a project that the private sector is willing and able to take on itself? This thinking is completely illogical…Unfortunately for Alabama taxpayers, this scenario in Gulf Shores is just a tiny part of a larger problem in Alabama: Taxpayer resources are not always appropriated responsibly. There are plenty of wasted dollars in the state budget, such as long-standing corporate subsidies that suck up millions every year.”
That $30 million figure also now appears to be a massive understatement. Court transcripts from Director Cooper’s recent attempt to defend the bridge show that it has been projected to cost $30 million, and also $52 million, and also $87 million, with the highest of those figures seeming to be the latest accepted number. The wide variance in projected costs is indicative of a project demanding further scrutiny, especially a proposal that is entirely backed by taxpayers.
Cooper also admitted to conducting “no formal studies” on traffic patterns along the coast or other due diligence proving a costly new taxpayer-funded asset is going to do anything other than dump more traffic onto already congested roads. Many longtime observers of Alabama politics aren’t’ surprised that a Bentley appointee wants to spend taxpayer dollars on a whim without even being able to get his numbers straight – all for the purpose of hurting a private sector infrastructure partner.
Public-private partnerships are increasingly recognized in state capitals, Congress, and the Trump administration as a key part of the solution to addressing the nation’s transportation needs, which includes a long backlog of projects to both expand capacity and repair existing infrastructure.
Following the release of the White House’s $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan earlier this year, members of Congress and policy experts have been busy critiquing the Trump administration’s proposal and putting forth their own plans. One thing that infrastructure proposals supported by Republicans and Democrats share in common is the high price tag. As such, much of the infrastructure debate has and will continue to focus on where the funding comes from.
The White House proposal has the federal government covering $200 billion of the $1.5 trillion price tag. The rest is slated to come from state governments and private investment. It would be just as misguided, if not more so, for state officials to raise state gas tax rates as it would for Congress to raise the federal gas tax. So where will money for infrastructure - both expanding capacity and upgrading existing assets - come from? Leveraging private capital will be not only key to any sound infrastructure plan, but necessary.
“Getting to $1.5 trillion without a significant asset-recycling effort will be a challenge, unless states decide to implement other revenue measures such as big tax or fee increases,” said Geoff Segal, senior vice president at Macquarie Capital, the investment-banking arm of Australia’s Macquarie Group Ltd.
Asset recycling, as Segal refers to it, is the term for selling government assets in order to free up revenue for new infrastructure spending. According to Macquarie estimates, state and local governments in the U.S. could generate $1.25 trillion by privatizing their infrastructure assets.
The push by Cooper, who was appointed to his position at the Alabama Department of Transportation by the disgraced previous governor, for a new bridge paid for entirely by taxpayers should be rejected and set aside. The fact that Cooper refers to his proposal as “free,” even though the price tag to taxpayers has risen to $87 million, nearly triple the original price tag, is telling. Cooper has failed to make the case that a new bridge will do anything to alleviate traffic problems along Alabama’s Gulf Coast. He’s admitted he didn’t care to do so before mounting an attack on a private bridge owner a mile from the proposed new bridge site.
Alabama certainly has some dire infrastructure needs that are threatened by Cooper’s waste of nearly $100 million on an unnecessary bridge to the beach. Sen. Richard Shelby, for example, has repeatedly talked about the need to widen a crucial shipping channel in Mobile, which he says will drive unprecedented economic growth by allowing Alabama to ship more freight in and out of the state’s most important port. Like Trump’s plan, the port dredging will rely on some federal dollars – up to 75 percent of the total cost. But 25 percent – about $125 million, close to the total cost of the bridge to the beach – must come from the state. It will be more difficult for Gov. Ivey to deliver on her end of the deal if she’s allowing her transportation department director to repurpose those funds for a third bridge that the private sector is already interested in funding.
Gov. Ivey is a popular red state governor who has a good relationship with President Trump. Her state’s transportation director, however, is currently working at cross purposes with the President’s infrastructure agenda by discouraging private investment, supporting tax hikes, and diverting scarce taxpayer dollars from what many see as more pressing priorities like the Mobile port expansion.
It’s hard to imagine Gov. Ivey agrees with this approach, but it’s easy to understand why Alabama taxpayers would want clarification of her position on the matter as the top elected official in charge of Alabama government’s executive branch.
