Economists see revival of an old fix

Doug Black, chief executive of Atlanta-based Oldcastle Materials Inc., a supplier of asphalt and concrete, told a House committee that most highway maintenance and repair projects can be undertaken quickly.

Skepticism still abounds.

"Changes in infrastructure spending are not an effective method of creating jobs or providing short-run fiscal stimulus to the economy," Alan D. Viard of the American Enterprise Institute told a congressional committee last month, arguing that they are a slower and less efficient form of stimulus.

"Practically speaking," the Congressional Budget Office said in a report earlier this year, "large-scale construction projects of any type require years of planning and preparation. Even those that are 'on the shelf' generally cannot be undertaken quickly enough to provide timely stimulus to the economy."

House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said he's concerned that such projects could lead to wasteful pork-barrel spending.

The Bush administration is similarly unenthusiastic about spending more on public works projects. "They take a long time for the money to get out into the system. And a lot of the claims that are made about how much transportation could actually help build the economy are overblown," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

But some skeptics have changed their minds as evidence has accumulated that the government may have to deal with a more severe economic challenge than most of today's leaders have ever seen.

Rep. John Tanner (D-Tenn.), a member of the fiscally conservative Blue Dogs, said he is more receptive to infrastructure spending than to sending out more tax rebate checks.

"Infrastructure spending, one, is good for the country, and two, it creates jobs immediately," he said in an interview. "And every state has a stack of infrastructure projects that they prioritize, that could get fairly quickly into the commerce stream. Infrastructure is much more appealing to me if we're going to deficit spend."

"You always worry about pork-barrel spending, but with the economy in the shape that it's in right now, that's less of a concern than it was earlier this year," said Robert L. Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a budget watchdog group.

"If they sent out a bunch of rebates now, they'd find people just wouldn't spend them," Bixby said. "That makes a stronger case for the government actually making direct expenditures. One of the best ways to do that is through infrastructure projects, provided -- and this is the tough part -- that they really are ready to go."

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richard.simon@latimes.com

jim.puzzanghera@latimes.com