Editor's Focus - Politics or Governance?

The American public, which may pay a great deal of attention to political campaigns, isn’t always so good at watching what elected officials are doing in between campaign seasons.

In terms of news to be packaged, two candidates or parties that are sniping at each other can offer a more intriguing video clip or headline than what is discovered by attending a committee meeting or carefully scrutinizing an annual budget.

The pageantry and rough-and-tumble of politics gets the attention, but the slower moving wheels of budget allocations and approvals cause money to flow in one direction or the other.

In a climate where the unemployment rate is getting a little bit higher each month, elected officials are receiving an onslaught of advice on how to use taxpayer funds to invigorate the economy.

Infrastructure spending is the name most commonly applied to big-ticket plans involving highways, bridges, sewer systems and other concrete-and-steel methods to provide employment while also spending government funds in ways that can be seen and appreciated.

Not long after the new administration and new Congress settle into their offices, they will be taking up the matter of how to make infrastructure spending part of a larger program that will be packaged as an economic stimulus plan.

Infrastructure spending involving the construction of roads, bridges and other structures is expected to comprise a healthy fraction of the overall plan. The plan may end up being a source of good news for construction contractors, paving companies, aggregates producers and makers of steel rebar and the steel beams and plates used in bridge construction.

An increased emphasis on infrastructure spending may also provide a dose of good news to recyclers and equipment makers that serve these markets.

However, before any such government gears grind into action, it is anticipated that elected officials and the staff members who serve them will have plenty to discuss in terms of identifying which projects truly serve an infrastructure need and which ones fall into the "pet project" category.

These discussions may occur at the federal level. (Congress has been asked by the incoming administration not to attach specific-program amendments to an overall bill, but the temptation may prove too great.) Lobbying and jockeying for position will certainly take place at the state level, should blocks of federal transportation dollars be sent to the states.

In either case, while Americans may like to think that politics ends and is replaced by governance after the votes are counted, in all likelihood politics will play a role in any upcoming infrastructure spending program.