The infrastructure bill, which isn’t passed yet, is a fragile piece of legislature.
Both parties agree America’s shabby infrastructure needs extensive repairs, but they’ve fought over dollar amounts, funding sources, and the details.
The House has passed a bill; it’s hung up in the Senate, because of the filibuster. There, the strategy has been to assign a bipartisan group of moderate senators to thrash out these issues.
President Biden, who ran partly on his ability to get things done because of his long legislative experience and manifold personal connections, has kept a watchful eye on the process without being an active participant.
An infrastructure bill might pass. Neither party wants to be blamed by voters for doing nothing while the vital sinews of our economy rot away. This is what the menu looks like right now:
- Electricity grid: $73 billion
- Passenger and freight rail: $66 billion
- Internet broadband access: $65 billion
- Water infrastructure: $55 billion
- Bridge repairs: $40 billion
- Public transit: $39 billion
- Electric vehicle charging stations: $7.5 billion
Some of this, especially the broadband spending, will benefit rural areas that can’t afford it on their own. Urban taxpayers will, in effect, donate it to them. And this is exactly the kind of government program that people living in those places call “socialism.” So, by the way, are farm programs and crop supporters, reclamation projects and cheap irrigation water, rural mail delivery, and virtually every paved road in farming country, along with schools, libraries, rural health clinics, and a host of other public services.
And low-population, rural, “red” states don’t hesitate to use their outsized voting power to get those benefits. Hypocrisy runs very deep in “red” country.
Read story here. For a list of dangerous bridges, go here. Video below: How would you like to commute across this bridge every day?
Related: Electrical industry exec says “weak links in the power distribution network could bring the nation to its knees.” Read story here.