I first heard the phrase “belts and suspenders” in the 1970 movie Once Upon a Time in the West. Henry Fonda, who played a hired gunman “Frank” asked: “How can you trust a man who wears a belt and suspenders? Man can’t even trust his own pants.” A more recent definition of a Belt and Suspenders Guy is found on www.urbandictionary.com [1]. The first definition is:
“A man who goes to great lengths to avoid risk, embarrassment or exposure, i.e., if the belt should break, the suspenders will keep his pants on. Not quite paranoid, but on his way there. Can also be said of a man with something to hide (or less than something, as the case may be).”
It’s all about redundancy.
In the engineering profession, belts and suspenders would be considered a redundant support system if the two devices were employed simultaneously to support the same pair of trousers. For the modest person the redundancy of wearing a belt and a pair of suspenders is pretty important. In the American vernacular, being a “belt and suspenders guy” has come to connote a conservative philosophy.
Personally, I don’t simultaneously employ belts and suspenders in my daily attire. I prefer to wear thick leather belts. Belts are convenient for attaching my Leatherman pocket knife case, which contains a tool of moderate personal value. The belt also holds up my trousers, which has some value in terms of dignity, but not as much value as my Leatherman tool.
I cannot claim to be a belt and suspenders guy in the purest form of the term. But, that doesn’t make me less conservative. As I see it, redundancy costs money. A conservative approach to spending money on redundant systems is a business approach. The conservative person weighs the cost of buying redundancy (e.g., a color-coordinated belt-suspenders set) against the probability of system failure times the value of the potential loss. Being conservative means spending the right amount of money to mitigate the right amount of risk.
In the material world of the average person, Murphy’s Law is a constant. In the world of public infrastructure, Murphy’s Law becomes a multiplier: if a system can fail, the magnitude of the failure will be larger if more people are using the system. The failure of the I-35W Bridge in Minneapolis this summer is a case in point. Had sufficient redundant support been added to the bridge system during initial construction, and had maintenance repairs be undertaken in a timely manner, the accident would not have happened. Saving a buck for the Minnesota DOT probably wasn’t the first thing that crossed the minds of hundreds of motorists who found themselves plunging 100-feet into the Mississippi River on August 1, 2007. In the engineering profession, we would say that somebody wasn’t conservative in their design and maintenance of the bridge system. There weren’t enough “belts and suspenders” to support the trousers in this case.
Most of Tuesday night’s meeting of the Green Cove Springs City Council was about my proposal to fund critical infrastructure needs by borrowing money. It wound up being a clash of conservative titans, each arguing the righteousness of their own brand of conservative credentials with respect to our responsibilities to protect the health, safety and welfare of the public.
Engineers are not necessarily titans, but they are conservative by the nature of their profession. The engineers invited to the meeting made their conservative argument in favor of redundant systems for the water, wastewater and electric systems in the City to support a growing population. These professionals stated the City needed new water wells yesterday and would need additional high-service pumping within two-to-three years. The engineers stated that it would take 18 to 24 months to construct the system if we got started today. These are redundant systems—if a well or a pump fails, there should be a back up well and a backup pump already installed. The cost of an entire City getting sick from bad water is far greater than the cost of new wells and pumps. Therefore, spending money to make improvements is justified and fiscally responsible. It is conservative.
The electrical engineers, who reported to the Council earlier in the year, gave a more bleak evaluation of the electric distribution system (although it was somewhat rosier than the evaluation of the system provided by the last electrical engineers, who were fired shortly after releasing their bleak report earlier in the decade). In a very nice way, the electrical engineers told the City that they were way exceeding the safe capacity of the system. Kind of like plugging in too many extension cords into a single wall receptacle. Sooner or later you either throw a breaker (if you’re lucky) or burn down the house (if you’re not). The electrical engineers politely said it was urgent to remedy the situation.
Mr. Conservative Values weighed in with his own conservative approach to infrastructure management. Mr. Conservative Values cruised into the Council meeting in his Corvette and told the Council that the conservative approach to infrastructure funding was to place a moratorium on using the City's credit worthiness to fund the projects immediately. Instead he urged the City to get in line for a government hand-out in the form of a grant. I am not opposed to grants. Lord knows I’ve snagged millions of dollars in grant funding for utility projects in this City and throughout Northeast Florida. If standing in line to get on the government dole is a core conservative value, then I’ve got to be one of the most right-wing guys in Clay County.
Mr. Fiscal Responsibility was not to be outdone by Mr. Conservative Values. Mr. Fiscal Responsibility touted his conservative approach, echoing the same lines as his friend, Mr. Conservative Values. However, Mr. Fiscal Responsibility threw in a nine-year resume of “fiscally responsible” project construction. You’ve got to know Mr. Fiscal Responsibility (and be somewhat of a nerd) to really appreciate the significance of his resume, but let me give it a try.
Take a simple sidewalk project for example. Mr. Fiscal Responsibility doesn’t just build sidewalks with 3000 psi concrete, like most people. Mr. Fiscal Responsibility adds an additional 25 pounds of steel rebar to each square yard of concrete, which nearly quintuples the price of the sidewalk project. Granted, steel rebar adds redundant strength to 3000 psi concrete, whether you need it or not. For pedestrian sidewalk purposes, 3000 psi concrete is pretty strong—it’s capable of supporting the factored live load weight of an 8650-pound man. It is a very conservative assumption that someday an 8651 pound man will go skipping along the City sidewalks and break the concrete. Adding steel to the concrete makes it that much stronger. For example, if you were to see an 8651 pound terrorist skipping along the City sidewalks with two pounds of C-4 explosive and a detonator strapped around his waist 36 inches above the sidewalks, you could probably burrow under the City sidewalk which is reinforced with #5 rebar and survive the blast. That is, provided you could dig fast enough to escape the 26,400 feet-per-second gas expansion rate at the instant of detonation. Mr. Fiscal Responsibility makes some pretty conservative design assumptions on the projects he actually completes.
Whether or not it is fiscally responsible to construct sidewalks at five times the market rate depends on whether or not you believe that the 8651-pound terrorist scenario could happen to you or your loved ones.
City Council chamber was also graced with the presence of Mr. Belt and Suspenders Guy who didn’t arrive in a Corvette, but did boast the same conservative horsepower as his friend Mr. Conservative Values and Mr. Fiscal Responsibility. Mr. Belt and Suspenders Guy opposes investment in the utilities. His conservative solution is to sell the assets rather than to invest and reinvigorate, which is consistent with the risk-adverse philosophy of a belt and suspenders man. Mr. Belt and Suspenders Guy has the aptitude to be a salesman. It would be nice if he aspired become a Jack Welch or Jeffery Immelt (Ex CEO and CEO of General Electric) who preach a conservative gospel of disciplined, diligent, long-term focus on safe and reliable investments.
The problem with the public infrastructure approach of Mssrs. Conservative Values, Fiscal Responsibility, and Belt and Suspenders Guy is lack of redundancy. Mr. Fiscal Responsibility claims there is a secret plan to complete all the projects in three or four years without borrowing money. The plan is not in writing, but it must depend largely on grants, since somebody in the City frittered away all the financial reserves building over-designed sidewalks, etc. There is no certainty of getting a grant 10 months from now when the Governor signs the next budget. There is no backup plan to get the water projects funded, constructed, and operational within 14-to-26 months after a grant request is approved or rejected by the State Legislature and the Governor. It takes some time to order equipment and to build this kind of infrastructure. Mssrs. Conservative Values, Fiscal Responsibility and Belt and Suspenders Guy make some pretty liberal assumptions for supposedly conservative guys.
At the end of the day, boasting conservative credentials means very little when the health safety and welfare of real people depend on critical government services and infrastructure. Ideology doesn’t keep my drinking water safe or keep the beer cold in the refrigerator. Wise investment does. Who made any sense on Tuesday night? Only my wheel-chair bound friend who hangs out at Starbucks and who doesn’t get paid to come to nearly every City Council meeting:
“Let’s quit talking and get these projects done”.
Amen