Members of Congress have always wanted to stem the rising flood of state and local infrastructure problems. It’s a powerful political image — using federal taxpayer dollars as the metaphorical finger in the dike, holding back the flood of failing infrastructure. Special interests have used this image for decades as their candidates climb the ladder of elective office from selectman to state representative, congressman, senator, and president.

The metaphor works in the political world, but the story is fiction. In the real world, no conceivable federal grant program can stop the flood that Congress has created for state and local governments across the nation with the proliferation of infrastructure that no one can afford to maintain.

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