One of Obama’s stock defenses of more government “stimulus” spending is that we’ll get both better education and more jobs if we spend more money to fix up school buildings.
As Cato’s Andrew Coulson observes here, however, government officials already spend much more than do private school officials, and yet have facilities that are in worse shape. The incentives for government officials are not oriented toward making efficient use of funds to keep buildings from getting run down (that’s what lurked in the shadows behind the 2000 higher ed bond that was supposedly needed to solve the emergency of many decrepit UNC system buildings) and tossing lots of federal money their way is going to add to the waste.
It will, however, make some unionized construction companies and their workers happy, since Davis-Bacon will steer the projects and money their way.
