Private equity tail wagging the public infrastructure dog?
By Leonard Hyman and Willian Tilles | 14 February 2018
WOLF STREET — About two years [ago], we came across an article discussing infrastructure in a relatively obscure engineering journal. The authors of the piece were Wilbur Ross, now Commerce Secretary in the Trump cabinet, and Peter Navarro, a Trump economic adviser.
What struck us about the piece, supposedly elaborating their infrastructure plan, was that there was really nothing in particular that they wanted to build – nothing that would excite the imagination: no space race, or federal highway initiative, and heaven forbid certainly no new deal.
Thinking about it in accounting terms, the asset side of their infrastructure balance sheet was a compete blank. But the liability side of the ledger was the real focus of the Ross/Navarro exercise. They provided an answer to a question that almost no one was asking: How much leverage can one get away with and still control a federal infrastructure project? Their answer was 6-to-1.
On Monday, the White House released its long awaited “Legislative Outline for Rebuilding Infrastructure in America.” It boils down to this: The federal government claims it can facilitate a $1.5-trillion program with only $200 billion of federal money. That’s a leverage ratio of 7.5-to-1. That’s it. […]
Ever increasing toll roads, increasing fuel taxes, with the implementation of mileage taxes with little or no infrastructure improvement. “Murka” baby!!