Investimento Público: Uma ciência

Alex Taborrok, no Marginal Revolution, cita um artigo de Linda Bilmes sobre um problema pouco explorado (ou referenciado) quanto ao estímulos fiscais:

...We will be attempting to ramp up spending in a very rapid way in a government bureaucracy not set up to deal with this kind of effort. In any organization that starts to increase spending very rapidly there are risks of waste, fraud and inefficiency....

A good play to start looking for lessons is by analyzing the three biggest recent examples of heavy government spending on infrastructure: the Iraqi reconstruction effort, Hurricane Katrina reconstruction, and the Big Dig artery construction in Boston. Let me start by pointing out that all of these were plagued by a number of serious problems.

Iraqi reconstruction: [T]he Special Inspector General for Reconstruction, Stuart Bowen,...has found that the effort has been riddled with cost overruns, project delays, fraud, failed projects and wasteful expenditures...even though the first tranche of $19 billion in Iraqi reconstruction money became available in October 2003, the Defense Department did not issue the first requests for proposals for this money until 10 months later...

Hurricane Katrina: ...the US has appropriated, over $100 billion in short and long term reconstruction grants, loan subsidies [etc]...GAO found that FEMA made over $1 billion--or 16% of the total in this particular category--in fraudulent payments...items like professional football tickets and Caribbean vacations.

The Big Dig: ...the largest single infrastructure project in the US...many lessons on how not to run a project...officially launched in 1982, but it did not break ground until 1991, due to environmental impact statements, technical difficulties and jurisdictional squabbles...not "completed" until 2007.

Lembro-me também de um trabalho de faculdade que fiz sobre as derrapagens nas obras públicas portuguesas e os resultados não eram nada promissores em obras normais programadas por uma eternidade (como o Centro Cultural de Belém, os prolongamentos do Metro de Lisboa...). Não percebo como é que alguém pode confiar que em casos de investimento público apressado "para combater a crise", essas derrapagens vão ser menores.

Ou seja:

• investimento público leva muito tempo a entrar em acção;
• grandes projectos de investimento público levam sempre a desperdício de dinheiro ineficientemente;
• retira possiblidades de crédito a entidades privadas.

Mas, de alguma forma, Paul Krugman insiste em chamar à "belief in tax-cut magic" voodoo economics. (adoro a forma como Krugman coloca republicanos ao lado de charlatães e aldrabões... basicamente, se não tens a mesma ideologia polítca que ele, então és um aldrabão)