Spenders
Spenders usually work in line or service departments. Whereas some service departments are involved with physical projects, such as transport, other social service
departments (welfare, health, or recreation), need to invest in human capital.
When they spend money on constituents, spenders tend to consider such expenditure as benefits rather than count it as costs. Thus, expenditure on labour is
considered as a benefit instead of a cost. Spenders view themselves as builders or
professional distributors of services provided by government.
However, for the spenders, the money paid by government to construction
workers building the highway is also a benefit. Thus, spenders consider both project
benefits and project costs as benefits.
Sometimes no project is better than spending money on a useless project.
However, spenders prefer to support any project alternative instead of the status
quo (no project). It is, therefore, perfectly understandable that guardians do not trust
spenders. They most often oppose each other.
Usually, politicians give preference to projects that shower benefits on specific
interest groups, while spreading costs widely over the population or camouflaging
them behind other expenses. Spenders think similarly. A weightage is given to each
impact category, depending on the strength of the link that constituents associate
between their agency and the impact. They concentrate on impacts for which they
will receive plenty of credit from their constituents, and will blindly ignore others. It
is human nature to notice expenditure on oneself. Thus, such “benefits” are usually
weighted more heavily than social benefits. For example, construction jobs are given
a higher weightage than diffuse social benefits. So, efforts towards resilience might
not receive a due significant weightage.
Spenders also behave similarly to politicians – who insist on completing partially
completed projects – in trying to push for large, irreversible projects requiring
capital-intensive resources. Thus, urban rail systems will get a preference over
buses, because once the infrastructure is installed, it is difficult to redeploy it to
alternative uses. Therefore, the system is bound to remain in operation, while
constituents are guaranteed to obtain some benefits. Furthermore, if as usual, such
projects have lower operating costs, permitting lower tariffs, this ensures significantly high usage levels, and hence increasing constituency support further.
It would seem that spenders do not really understand how markets work. They
believe that markets are quite inefficient, believing unemployment exists in all
sectors of the economy, which will therefore be decreased by the number of people
employed on a government project. However, when workers from a sector or
industry A move to a government job, there are vacancies in sector A. These
vacancies have now to be filled, either by unemployed people (there has been a
job creation) or by workers from a sector B, where other vacancies are now created.
Spenders do not understand that project resources have been diverted from other
potentially productive sectors that also involve jobs.
Furthermore, spenders believe in a multiplier effect between job creation and
other project expenditures. At the extreme, there is a belief that expenditures (costs)
are “benefits”, which multiplied by the multiplier, enable any government project to
produce other large “benefits” bigger than “costs”.
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11 Infrastructure Resilience
Spenders usually work in line or service departments. Whereas some service departments are involved with physical projects, such as transport, other social service
departments (welfare, health, or recreation), need to invest in human capital.
When they spend money on constituents, spenders tend to consider such expenditure as benefits rather than count it as costs. Thus, expenditure on labour is
considered as a benefit instead of a cost. Spenders view themselves as builders or
professional distributors of services provided by government.
However, for the spenders, the money paid by government to construction
workers building the highway is also a benefit. Thus, spenders consider both project
benefits and project costs as benefits.
Sometimes no project is better than spending money on a useless project.
However, spenders prefer to support any project alternative instead of the status
quo (no project). It is, therefore, perfectly understandable that guardians do not trust
spenders. They most often oppose each other.
Usually, politicians give preference to projects that shower benefits on specific
interest groups, while spreading costs widely over the population or camouflaging
them behind other expenses. Spenders think similarly. A weightage is given to each
impact category, depending on the strength of the link that constituents associate
between their agency and the impact. They concentrate on impacts for which they
will receive plenty of credit from their constituents, and will blindly ignore others. It
is human nature to notice expenditure on oneself. Thus, such “benefits” are usually
weighted more heavily than social benefits. For example, construction jobs are given
a higher weightage than diffuse social benefits. So, efforts towards resilience might
not receive a due significant weightage.
Spenders also behave similarly to politicians – who insist on completing partially
completed projects – in trying to push for large, irreversible projects requiring
capital-intensive resources. Thus, urban rail systems will get a preference over
buses, because once the infrastructure is installed, it is difficult to redeploy it to
alternative uses. Therefore, the system is bound to remain in operation, while
constituents are guaranteed to obtain some benefits. Furthermore, if as usual, such
projects have lower operating costs, permitting lower tariffs, this ensures significantly high usage levels, and hence increasing constituency support further.
It would seem that spenders do not really understand how markets work. They
believe that markets are quite inefficient, believing unemployment exists in all
sectors of the economy, which will therefore be decreased by the number of people
employed on a government project. However, when workers from a sector or
industry A move to a government job, there are vacancies in sector A. These
vacancies have now to be filled, either by unemployed people (there has been a
job creation) or by workers from a sector B, where other vacancies are now created.
Spenders do not understand that project resources have been diverted from other
potentially productive sectors that also involve jobs.
Furthermore, spenders believe in a multiplier effect between job creation and
other project expenditures. At the extreme, there is a belief that expenditures (costs)
are “benefits”, which multiplied by the multiplier, enable any government project to
produce other large “benefits” bigger than “costs”.
324
11 Infrastructure Resilience