[cantankerous]

I agree with you on infrastructure spending except for one nuance. Usually telecom companies laying down infrastructure are given rights of way and easements that make their jobs much, much, less expensive. That is to say, if we lived in a private property, capitalist utopia, laying down thousands of miles of fiber would be orders of magnitude more expensive and possibly completely intractable. Government plays a role here by suspending private property rights in lieu of the added value to the public where infrastructure is concerned. If you were to figure in the money saved to infrastructure builders by government, then the spending numbers would like quite a bit different.

[twoodfin]

Usually telecom companies laying down infrastructure are given rights of way and easements that make their jobs much, much, less expensive.

Is it traditional for states and localities to just give this stuff away? If they're not accepting competitive bids for the right to lay fiber, they're leaving money on the table.

Certainly when it comes to things like wireless spectrum, the Feds have auctions for billions of dollars.

Here's a pre-dot com crash article that suggests at least for some areas these rights weren't given away:

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1999-06-04/business/9906040...