Reporting of government spending on highways and other infrastructure is so filled with lies and distortions that it isn’t funny. You can never get a real picture of whether there is adequate funding for real infrastructure projects, like repairing roads and bridges. “Infrastructure” includes a lot of “green” projects these days, like bike paths and walking trails, as well as useless highway spending like multi-million dollar electronic billboards that really aren’t necessary. Plus bids are inflated by overpriced union labor and awards to crony capitalist contractors who get them because of who they know. I suspect that even with these “huge” cuts, there would be enough money to fund the really necessary projects at competitive rates.
The article try’s to imply something devious with “same day payments”. That’s not how it works. The contractor submits his monthly expenses, which are reviewed by the contracting agent and adjusted if necessary. The agency submits that bill for payment to the funding agency. If the funding agency has electronic funds transfer it may take a a week or two to reimburse the contracting agency. Then the funding agency submits to FHWA for reimbursement.
Some contracting agencies may have enough cash on hand to pay contractors but not likely on projects with monthly claims over more than a few hundred thousand so most agencies delay release of the check until it receives the reimbursement. State DOTs float their gas tax revenues to reimburse the contracting agency and then wait on the fed reimbursement.
In all of the public works contracts I have ever worked on none was ever awarded to any “crony contractor”. Of course we don’t have the level of corruption out west like the entrenched folks on the east coast or mid west.
Every project we do goes under the anal microscope of a fed and state audit so I don’t understand why more corruption that we hear about isn’t caught.