2010 was a year of transition to a new normalcy, with consumers and businesses adjusting expectations and spending with more caution. As seen with November’s midterm elections, this has spilled into the political arena, where polls indicate confidence in our political institutions and leaders is declining.
Poll results released by the Gallup organization last summer indicate half of Americans have little or no confidence in Congress.
The new Congress is unlikely to achieve anything to reverse this downward trend and the stalemate likely to occur in Congress will have a significant impact on the cargo transportation sector, because critical infrastructure issues are unlikely to be addressed.
While most agree we need a new federal highway bill, few agree on what such a bill should look like. The administration is pushing its high-speed rail initiative while legislators once happy to bring pork home to their districts are leery of looking fiscally imprudent. At the beginning of the financial crisis, there was optimism in the transportation sector that much-needed infrastructure projects would receive funding under the various stimulus programs. The projects funded with stimulus money were so local, however, even the large amount of money won’t have an impact on the national freight infrastructure initiative this country needs.
Any change will have to come from a bottom-up recovery generated by consumers who have weathered the worst of the storm and who are willing to spend hard-earned cash and create new demand for goods.