— Editor’s note: First in a series of election stories.



Decades of neglect and underfunding jeopardizes the nation’s infrastructure and its ability to support the American economy, experts say.

The American Society of Civil Engineers a gave the national infrastructure a grade of “D” after an extensive study in 2009. The organization lauded recent success with the passage in June of a national transportation bill but said much work still needs to be done.

The two candidates for the Republican nomination in the 2nd Congressional District indicated that their willingness to fund future infrastructure projects would be limited.

State Rep. George Faught of Muskogee said he would limit transportation funding to “projects that fall under the constitutional principle of interstate commerce and are cost effective.” The owner of a family-owned and -operated carpet cleaning company said Congress “must move away from pet projects ... to legitimate projects that meet our nation’s infrastructure needs.”

Markwayne Mullin, a Westville businessman who owns a plumbing services company in Broken Arrow, also criticized congressional funding for “pet projects.” He said he would “support funding only for legitimate infrastructure needs.”

Both candidates acknowledged the difficulty in funding priority projects, blaming wasteful spending and the growing federal debt. “Even some legitimate infrastructure needs will be delayed,” Mullin said.

“I believe we need to eliminate our deficit and balance our budget, which means we’ll have to tighten our belts and understand that it takes sacrifice to get our spending under control,” Mullin said. “Because the politicians have spent us into trillions of dollars in debt, it will take tough decisions to put us back on the right track when it comes to spending.”

Faught, on the other hand, offered ideas that he believes would reduce the costs of federally funded projects. He said he would eliminate prevailing wage laws, which he calls the “union tax,” and “other regulatory burdens.”

“Done properly, federal spending on the transportation bill — the primary funding mechanism for infrastructure spending — would be nowhere near the approximately $40 billion per year that is currently provided by the federal gas excise taxes alone,”he said. “If these two approaches were adopted, a surplus would be created in the highway fund that could be returned to taxpayers or to the states for whatever infrastructure purposes those states deemed necessary or appropriate.”

Faught and Mullin parted ways again when it comes to how they would ensure that top priority infrastructure projects would be started and completed. Faught focused on reducing “unnecessary intrusion of government into the private sector.” Mullin talked more about “eliminating our debt” and “balancing our budget.”

“I will support any measure that cuts unnecessary intrusion of government into the private sector and drives up the cost and delays the start and completion of every infrastructure project,” Faught said, citing again the need to eliminate prevailing wage laws. “I would also call for a major strengthening of the Congressional Review Act so that bad or burdensome regulations can be immediately turned back as they are discovered without deadlines that are currently required.”

Mullin, when asked how he would make sure priority projects are started and completed, replied, “Focusing on specific projects is the wrong outlook.

“Our country is in financial ruin because of career politicians who have focused only on specific projects,” he said. “They lost sight of the big picture, and today our children and grandchildren owe $15 trillion because of this mentality.”

Faught and Mullin will square off in the Republican runoff Aug. 28. The winner will face one of two Democrats competing for that party’s nomination and Michael G. Fulks, an independent from Heavener, in the Nov. 6 general election. The Democratic runoff features Muskogee agribusinessman Wayne Herriman and former state and federal prosecutor Rob Wallace of Fort Gibson.

Reach D.E. Smoot at (918) 684-2901 or dsmoot@muskogeephoenix.com.