The best way to pay for infrastructure: don't pay for it

[The Cadet]

http://www.vox.com/2016/4/1/11345396/how-to-pay-for-infrastructure

On a daily basis, the Treasury Department does some fancy math based on the current market prices of different kinds of bonds to project a "real yield curve" — the inflation-adjusted cost of government borrowing across various time horizons.

As of March 30, the inflation-adjusted interest rate on 30-year bonds was a staggeringly low 0.86 percent, and the inflation-adjusted interest rate on five-year bonds was an even more staggeringly lower negative 0.26 percent.

Global investors, in short, are very eager to buy the federal government's bonds. So eager that they have pushed the interest the government needs to pay down to freakishly low levels — below zero for shorter-term securities. It's a classic case of an imbalance between supply and demand.

The good news is that it's very easy for the federal government to generate more debt. It just needs Congress to think of something worth doing and then not pay for it.
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Note the bolded - people are literally paying us to store their money. The article goes on to point out how, typically, good infrastructure investments have offered around a 10% return on investment - far higher than the absurdly low interest rates we'd be paying on the debt to finance those projects. It does make some sense... and it's certainly not more irresponsible than Trump's plan.

 

[Nithavela]

This can't end well.