Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute offers this comment on Cato’s latest study, “Who Owns U.S. Infrastructure?”
While some people assume that the federal government is the leader on infrastructure, the study finds that 97 percent of U.S. infrastructure is owned by the states and private sector.
However, the federal government is the tail that wags the dog—its regulations, taxes, and subsidies affect the level and efficiency of state, local, and private infrastructure investment.
The report argues that reforms to these federal interventions and privatization are the paths to higher-performance infrastructure.
