Latest / The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
The Trillion-Dollar Backlog of Government Building Repairs
The federal government owns over 300,000 buildings, but its maintenance backlog has ballooned to nearly 350 billion dollars. The Department of Defense alone has a 150 billion dollar backlog, with World War II-era temporary structures still in use. In this episode, Lucas and Luna explain how the federal budget process incentivizes new construction over upkeep, why every dollar of deferred maintenance creates two to four dollars in future costs, and how this hidden liability could eventually surpass a trillion dollars. They examine specific cases like the Army's decaying barracks at Fort…
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