Here are my initial reactions:
- “Infrastructure” used to mean hiring small armies of strong young unemployed men to build roads. That isn’t true anymore, because we don’t need more roads, and road projects aren’t a great source of employment. Just ask Obama.
- We do, on the other hand, need to repair lots of existing roads and bridges. The bill wisely provides for that.
- In the long run, assuming it passes, the meat of this bill is elsewhere: in the broadband, charging station, and industrial investments provisions. They aren’t “infrastructure” in the traditional sense, but they could make an enormous difference in the future.
- Business doesn’t like the corporate tax increases that are part of the bill. But what is their alternative? What tax increases are they proposing to pay for it? Or are they going to say that huge deficits are now OK? The MSM should inquire on this point.
- The logical consequence of 40 years of tax cuts and deregulation is lousy public services and a hollowed-out middle class. The bill is an attempt to move away from what I call “right-wing recycling” (cut taxes for the rich, and they use the money to buy up the new debt–not for productive investments) to a model intended to provide more widespread prosperity and hope for the future. Will it work? I don’t know, but it is long since time to try something new.
- If the bill passes, look for the GOP to take credit for it in the usual fashion, and for the left to whine that $2 trillion is chicken feed, which it isn’t.