Editorial: We Aren’t Devo
This Editorial appears in the Oct. 20 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.
Back in the 1970s and ’80s there was a band called Devo, a bunch of New Wave rockers from Ohio who wore yellow rubber suits and proclaimed, with great panache, that we as a species were devolving.
It wasn’t a serious statement, but it was lots of fun.
Now some 30 years later, devolution is back with a serious veneer but sadly bleached of fun. Limited government theorists have concluded the federal government is so hopelessly flawed, the only way to proceed on infrastructure development is to send transportation taxation and funding decisions back to the states.
People in state government are closer to the people than those at the federal level, so let the states judge the appetites of their publics and act accordingly, Heritage Action and other organizations have reasoned.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rep. Tom Graves (R-Ga.) agree with this argument and have introduced legislation to slash the Highway Trust Fund within five years.
We disagree. Replenish the Highway Trust Fund, don’t burn it.
People who view the federal government with a jaundiced eye receive our empathy. Take the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s implementation of the 34-hour restart provision.
Micromanagement, we say, showing that a one-size-fits-all federal regulation should really be put on a leash.
A sense of skepticism on federal matters is healthy, but we shouldn’t jump to the extreme of saying the federal government should be as close to irrelevant as possible. One of the things that has made our economy an unparalleled giant is that it can be a continuous market.
Thomas Jefferson was a great proponent of limited government, but as a practical matter he lunged for the nation’s checkbook to make the Louisiana Purchase. Ideology yielded to abundant common sense.
More than a century later, Dwight Eisenhower ignited a boom in commerce by starting the Interstate Highway System.
Earlier this month, ATA President Bill Graves said that “federal infrastructure is not optional” and that “devolution is simply code for passing the buck.”
We see states scrambling desperately to fill the vacuum of federal inactivity. We don’t blame them for trying to survive, but this is not a virtuous model.
Instead, we compliment Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.) for pursuing continuity with a serious federal plan to fund infrastructure. Success during a limited lame-duck session will be tough, but we salute their willingness to try.
