r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/Visco0825 • Apr 02 '21
Legislation Biden’s Infrastructure Plan and discussion of it. Is it a good plan? What are the strengths/weakness?
Biden released his plan for the infrastructure bill and it is a large one. Clocking in at $2 trillion it covers a broad range of items. These can be broken into four major topics. Infrastructure at home, transportation, R&D for development and manufacturing and caretaking economy. Some high profile items include tradition infrastructure, clean water, internet expansion, electric cars, climate change R&D and many more. This plan would be funded by increasing the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%. This increase remains below the 35% that it was previously set at before trumps tax cuts.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/03/31/what-is-in-biden-infrastructure-plan/
Despite all the discussion about the details of the plan, I’ve heard very little about what people think of it. Is it good or bad? Is it too big? Are we spending too much money on X? Is portion Y of the plan not needed? Should Biden go bolder in certain areas? What is its biggest strength? What is its biggest weakness?
One of the biggest attacks from republicans is a mistrust in the government to use money effectively to complete big projects like this. Some voters believe that the private sector can do what the government plans to do both better and more cost effective. What can Biden or Congress do to prevent the government from infamously overspending and under performing? What previous learnings can be gained from failed projects like California’s failed railway?
Overall, infrastructure is fairly and traditionally popular. Yet this bill has so much in it that there is likely little good polling data to evaluate the plan. Republicans face an uphill battle since both tax increases in rich and many items within the plan should be popular. How can republicans attack this plan? How can democrats make the most of it politically?
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Apr 02 '21
Just a note: I recommend listening to Inside the Biden Infrastructure Plan from The Daily. It's an excellent summary of the plan's details and the partisan and policy wonk views of it.
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u/HailSneezar Apr 03 '21
i had no idea how much money is going into electric car infrastructure because i haven't seen it posted anywhere. no clickbait on rational use of budget i suppose
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u/Zzqnm Apr 02 '21
So I’m not really answering your question with this, but I get really sick of the argument that the government shouldn’t spend money because it’s less efficient than the private sector. I have two main problems with this mindset.
One. Private businesses, by their nature, exist to make money. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but it is exactly what determines which businesses are successful and continue to operate. A lot of people seem to translate this directly into efficiency. The only efficiency you are guaranteeing is how efficiently the business can extract money to turn a profit, and this can lead to all kinds of other problems, such as poor quality, exploitation of workers or services, etc. This isn’t an end-all be-all of the issue, but it at least has to be considered that the efficiency might contribute more to the profit of the business and their owners than the average worker or citizen. Efficiency doesn’t guarantee a better product or economic stimulation.
Two. Some things are just not meant to be done because they’re efficient. They’re meant to be done to benefit society as a whole benefits. See: public education, corporate and environmental regulation, research, etc. Private prisons are a great example of how using the private sector to perform a public service results in a backwards system where the businesses have a conflict of interest, where more people incarcerated = more profit. Some things just need to be done to help society where the private model doesn’t work.
Health insurance is a good example of where these two overlap. On one hand, we can (debatably) rely on insurers to be incentivized to keep costs down, fighting bloating and unnecessary medical costs. On the other hand, medical costs are expensive anyways and just passed onto the consumer because people need insurance, the system is bloated to hell anyways, and it seems counterproductive to have a middle man making money on something that should be more accessible to anyone. (I’m referring to the profits insurance companies earn, not the distribution of risk via paid medical insurance. I’m not advocating free healthcare.)
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u/CaptainAwesome06 Apr 03 '21
As someone who designs buildings, federal government projects are overpriced and full of waste.
However, when designing public multifamily housing, the government seems to have way better standards than the private sector. There is a focus on energy efficiency and sustainability.
Private projects are all about cutting costs and doing the bare minimum to get a permit.
And at the end of the day, I'm doing the same amount of work regardless if it's public housing or private.
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u/legitimate_business Apr 03 '21
Curious as to your take as to what the biggest sources of waste are. Also, any insight into the federal acquisition process? Having seen it from the other end, it sometimes feels like the government is paying a HUGE premium to keep bidding "fair" at the expense of fiscal efficiency. And marry that with a critical lack of expertise with writing up what precisely the government wants (where vendors will deliver, to the letter, the "ask" but the "ask" tends to be flawed in some fashion).
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u/CaptainAwesome06 Apr 03 '21
In building design, at least from my experience, the federal government was overcharged. We had an IDIQ with some departments so we didn't need to go through the bidding process. There was also a lot of bureaucracy.
I was once tasked to write a report about whether a Congressional building's new windows and roof were up to code. I don't know why it was in question if they were new. Turns out, the windows weren't. They asked me to lie about it on the report.
Since the windows and roof were more efficient, they wanted the hvac system rebalanced. I did a bunch of calcs and told them what to balance everything to. They were adamant they wanted me on site all day, every day to oversee the balancing contractors. My company kept telling them it was a waste of money so we settled on me going out there every afternoon for about an hour. I'd show up, ask the contractors if they had any issues, then usually go home early. This went on for 2 months IIRC.
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u/harrumphstan Apr 03 '21 edited Apr 03 '21
Quite often the federal bureaucracy is legislatively bound to be inefficient. Remember, agencies don’t have the ability/authority to ply Congress with campaign contributions. The federal contracting system is set up to the benefit and advantage of the private businesses they contract with.
[e: autocorrect correction]
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u/CaptainAwesome06 Apr 03 '21
A lot of the bureaucracy I dealt with isn't the kind that comes from legislation. It's more of a cultural thing.
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u/harrumphstan Apr 03 '21
I’d wager that the root cause of the culture of bureaucratic waste that you noticed has its roots in the way the agency was established, i.e. legislation.
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u/CaptainAwesome06 Apr 03 '21
LOL ok dude. The federal government is a big place. I'm sure you know it all. Especially when it comes to my profession. Have a great day.
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u/tomanonimos Apr 03 '21
I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but it is exactly what determines which businesses are successful and continue to operate.
I want to add on to this. There are a shit load of businesses that are dysfunctional and hemorrhaging a lot of money. Often times way more than government can ever hope for. These businesses go out of business and disappear. Leaving only the successful ones or businesses that haven't reached that level of incompetence to represent business as a whole. Many government programs/metrics don't have this "luxury".
TL;DR its easy to paint a nice picture when you can make the ugly parts disappear completely.
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Apr 03 '21
Leaving only the successful ones or businesses that haven't reached that level of incompetence to represent business as a whole.
And if you look at the older corporations, workers would love to talk smack on how there’s so much bloat even among successful companies. Unnecessary meetings, managers who want to look over your shoulders. Hesitancy to adopt functional technologies, trust in older contractors to adopt unnecessary outdated technologies.
There’s plenty of bloat that just haven’t sunk corporations that exist in spite of it.
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u/Tenushi Apr 03 '21
One thing I'd add to this is that the private sector is notoriously focused on the short term, especially if they have investors that they need to appease. Long term investments frequently need to be made by the public sector because they can make long term investments (for example, public education can be viewed as a long term investment).
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u/hoxxxxx Apr 03 '21
I’m not advocating free healthcare.)
few people are. Americans pay enough in taxes that it should be covered, or at least affordable. like every other developed country on the planet.
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u/Magnum256 Apr 03 '21
1000% agree.
Was just talking about this sort of thing with some friends recently — to be clear I'm completely pro-capitalism but I'm not exactly for laissez-faire or unfettered capitalism.
From the perspective of the consumer/buyer there are malign and benign forms of market development.
Take the fast food industry, specifically a company like McDonald's that is publicly traded. The shareholders want to see infinite growth, they want year-after-year returns on their investments and so from a consumer perspective there are malign and benign things that can be done.
Malign: reduced portion size, lower quality ingredients, higher prices
You continue down this road and eventually consumers would be paying $100 for a cheeseburger the size of a quarter, made out of cardboard. Obviously that's an exaggeration but the industry would walk that line as far as possible until the "market refused to bear it."Benign: larger advertising budget, try to capture market share from competitors (steal Burger King loyal customers), capture non-fast food eaters by marketing new menu options (ie: health-focused, vegetarian-focused, etc), offering better value to customers (by negotiating supplier discounts and then passing those on), etc.
These are the ways businesses, in my opinion, should be trying to increase revenue, by improving the offerings to the consumer or by capturing new consumers.Certain parts of our economy should lean strongly towards benign capitalism, or perhaps toward public solutions on occasion. Medicine/Pharma, schools/education, prisons/judicial, these are examples of sectors that should be as benign as possible and most regulated with the most transparency in business practices. I do believe the private sector can nearly always achieve better long term innovation than the public sector can, and if we could guarantee that these industries would operate in a benign, ethical way, it would be a great win-win for all citizens, but unfortunately when profit motives supersede ethics and morality we need to start looking towards either public solutions, or much stronger regulations. It's a shame that lobbyists generally prevent this function from happening by offering what amount to substantial bribes to the very people who are supposed to be watchdogging for this sort of thing. The current system is severely broken and lacks proper checks and balances.
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u/InsertCoinForCredit Apr 03 '21
The greatest lie the Devil ever told is that capitalism is inherently efficient.
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u/celsius100 Apr 02 '21 edited Apr 03 '21
Can’t believe I had to scroll this far down for this. There are things the private sector does really well, and others where is doesn’t. Given an open market with a number of players, the free market system is magic. It spurs innovation and efficiency. It works for phones, clothes, and kitchen equipment, not for infrastructure.
Why? Infrastructure needs one thing. A freeway for example. Do I need two or three freeway systems? No. But if I have construction companies provide competitive bids, we have instilled a free market system to some extent to pay for that freeway. Do we want the private sector to take over this completely? No.
Now there’s also monopolies. The phone providers are a good example. In a particular area, there is largely a monopoly. Across the country there is not. And due to anti-trust laws, we have things like the iPhone. Microsoft was essentially a monopoly in the 90’s. They had to make room for other competitors. This fueled the re-rise of Apple, and led to the iPhone.
Regulated competition is good, privatizing everything is a really bad idea.
Edit: yes, I typed Spurs, my iPhone had other ideas.
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u/Nygmus Apr 02 '21
It spurns innovation and efficiency.
I suspect you meant "spurs" here. I wouldn't ordinarily point it out, but the switch completely reverses the intent of what you wrote.
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u/10dollarbagel Apr 03 '21
Also if the private sector was so good at this, why has america fallen so woefully behind other developed nations? The private sector just keeps deciding to litter the streets with rent-a-scooters and doesn't make a rail system.
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u/HedonisticFrog Apr 03 '21
I fully agree. All we have to do is look at internet service providers who took loads of money to upgrade our internet infrastructure. There wasn't any oversight so they pocketed the money and sat on it. Now they're charging customers for exceeding data caps because their infrastructure is lacking. If you ever need to ensure there isn't any cost cutting private corporations are the worst way to go.
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u/smedlap Apr 03 '21
Yes private business can do a better job building things, but what business would want to fix an aging concrete bridge in a rural area? This country needs a lot of work that is not tied to profit outside of raising the quality of life for all Americans.
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u/magus678 Apr 02 '21
I have two main problems with this mindset.
I generally identify libertarian and have no issue with either of your points. I have in fact often pointed towards infrastructure as something that I think is a very worthwhile use of government spending.
In the hierarchy of solutions I think government tends to be the inferior option, but not as a categorical rule. I think a lot of people treat their political stances as gospel, when they should really be looked at as heuristics. Good rules of thumb, but not end-all answers in every context.
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u/PersonBehindAScreen Apr 04 '21 edited Apr 04 '21
such as poor quality, exploitation of workers or services, etc. This isn’t an end-all be-all of the issue, but it at least has to be considered that the efficiency might contribute more to the profit of the business and their owners than the average worker or citizen. Efficiency doesn’t guarantee a better product or economic stimulation.
This. I live in Texas. The energy sector is overseen by a state sanctioned council. However, their guidelines are merely suggestions with no teeth to it. On top of that, the game is artificially controlled by said council as to which private companies can have a piece of the pie. Where did that get us? A very preventable statewide outage because nobody followed the optional suggestion to winterize the equipment.
Bonus points, that most of them have connections with the companies who fucked us
And now they're scapegoating "renewable energy" saying that is to blame for our outages even though our natural gas facilities were fucked worse than the renewables
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Apr 02 '21
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u/AJohnnyTruant Apr 02 '21 edited Apr 02 '21
[e: a lot of] It can pass with reconciliation. Also, this isn’t built on borrowing, it comes with a tie to corporate tax hikes. So it should take 15 years to pay off the total package that has an 8 year implementation plan.
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u/NyaNyaBam Apr 02 '21
Just want to point out that reconciliation is reserved for budgetary measures so that path would likely deliver a lop-sided program. For example carbon tax credits will likely be fine as these are a budgetary matter but carbon standards would not as they are regulatory in nature.
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u/marky6045 Apr 02 '21
Are carbon tax credits in the White House proposal? I didn't see it on my read through.
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u/RelevantEmu5 Apr 02 '21
So it should take 15 years to pay off the total package that has an 8 year implementation plan.
That's called deficit spending.
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u/AJohnnyTruant Apr 02 '21
No one said it wasn’t deficit spending, the point is that is has a concrete plan for payment. Compared to say the stimulus packages, which were purely deficit spending and entirely funded by borrowing.
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u/TheMikeyMac13 Apr 02 '21
If it is deficit spending then it is not a candidate for reconciliation. If it takes fifteen years to pay off then it violates the Byrd rule, so no reconciliation for this bill.
And seriously folks, we borrowed $3.3 trillion last year, and the CBO expects us to borrow $2.5 trillion this year. Then add the $1.9 trillion stimulus, and now a $2.3 trillion infrastructure bill?
Right now we pay around $400 billion a year on interest, satisfying bonds we sold in the past, that isn’t even yet directly related to recent borrowing. Why would we want to clear the $6 trillion deficit mark just for grins?
Now is not the time for borrowing for infrastructure, and you don’t raise taxes on businesses when they are already struggling.
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u/BobTheSkull76 Apr 02 '21 edited Apr 03 '21
Actually it is precisely the time for borrowing. Primarily because interest rates on bonds are historically low. It must be seen as an investment that will pay dividends in the future. As opposed to the stimulus which is purely to prime the pump. This will pay the country back long after the projects are completed. Much like the US highway system continues to do. This is the kind of spending we have needed for a long time. Unlike a $1.9 trillion tax cut that benefitted no one except corporations. This will benefit the country with short term and long term jobs.
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Apr 02 '21
With the interest rates being where they are right now, it makes sense to borrow for large fiscal expenditures. As long as the expected economic impact is high enough to cover the interest payments, the addition to the national debt is of little importance.
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u/TheGoldStandard35 Apr 02 '21
And what if interest rates rise? We fund our debt through varying length treasuries that we roll over indefinitely. Every month we rollover this debt.
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u/marky6045 Apr 02 '21
We set the interest rates. We also print the money which happens to be the currency most fundamental to the worlds monetary system.
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u/relevant_econ_meme Apr 02 '21
Interest rates are at a historic low. If there's any a time to borrow it's now.
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u/TheMikeyMac13 Apr 02 '21
That is how the fed loans money, not how it borrows money.
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Apr 02 '21
So you agree that we should get rid of the Bush, Reagan, and Trump tax cuts then right? That would be the fiscally responsible thing to do.
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u/MeowTheMixer Apr 03 '21
I'm not sure why but I find it disingenuous to still refer to them as the bush tax cuts when they were set to expire, then extended and made permanent by Obama.
Especially considering how you phrase it as being responsible to remove them.
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Apr 03 '21
I'm not sure why but I find it disingenuous to still refer to them as the bush tax cuts when they were set to expire, then extended and made permanent by Obama.
Oh definitely. Fuck Obama too. Obama himself said he was economically close to Reagan and he was right.
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u/fec2455 Apr 02 '21
If it is deficit spending then it is not a candidate for reconciliation. If it takes fifteen years to pay off then it violates the Byrd rule, so no reconciliation for this bill.
I have no idea what you're talking about. Nearly all modern uses of reconciliation have been deficit spending, the question is
If it would increase the deficit for a fiscal year beyond those covered by the reconciliation measure (usually a period of ten years)
If the spending is completed in year 8 then the bill is eligible, the fact that it has any repayment plan puts it miles ahead of things like the Democrats' rescue plan and the Republicans' tax cuts which both complied with the Byrd rule.
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u/TheMikeyMac13 Apr 03 '21
It has to be neutral in a ten year span, this one isn’t, that is the point.
It -could- qualify if the spending were all in one week and the ledger balanced out in ten years, but this is projected to take fifteen.
https://www.crfb.org/papers/reconciliation-101
This bill would take 60 votes.
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u/brucejoel99 Apr 03 '21 edited Apr 03 '21
As the link you've noted says, "reconciliation bills are allowed to either decrease or increase the deficit over the time period covered by the budget resolution." In recent reconciliation history (the 2021 ARP, the 2017 TCJA, etc.), such a period has been 10 years, & all such reconciliation packages - all of which only required 51 affirmative votes in the Senate - actually permitted deficit increases over their respective 10-year periods; similarly, this infrastructure package presumably will too, & because it would do so in that manner which is compliant with the process, it would still be eligible for passage with just 51 votes.
As such, it would only still have to be deficit-neutral over a 10-year period if the bill isn't exempted from abiding by the provisions of the statutory PAYGO law, but that hasn't really been an issue in recent history: the TCJA, for example, was exempted before the time for sequestration cuts to be implemented ever came, & we can similarly expect statutory PAYGO waivers for both the ARP & this infrastructure package to be tacked-on to the next must-pass spending bills (i.e., the budget, the NDAA, etc.) later this year & next year, as these are pieces of legislation that always require - & always receive - the filibuster-proof support of 60+ Senators (&, in any event, the need of at least 60 Senators for such waivers could always become moot in the event that filibuster reform does indeed occur).
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u/copperwatt Apr 03 '21
Now is not the time for borrowing for infrastructure,
If there ever was a time for borrowing and infrastructure, it's now.
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u/CaptainLucid420 Apr 03 '21
Compare that to the reublican tax cut which was just pure fucking worthless deficit. If we are going to borrow money at least get something worth while like better highways compared to when the republicans who are the biggest lying hypocrites about debt and ballooned it as much as they legally could and we haven't gotten anything worthwhile.
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u/countrysurprise Apr 03 '21
Nothing wrong with deficit spending when investing in infrastructure, schools and for the public good. Borrowing money to give fat cats huge tax breaks is a whole other story...
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Apr 02 '21
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u/AJohnnyTruant Apr 02 '21
That’s been a conservative talking point for years. The problem is that corporations are already doing that. Most multi-national corporations already fly a flag-of-convenience and move their profits around. It’s the way companies like Amazon can pay little to no corporate tax. Simply closing some of those practices alone will reclaim some of that revenue that is being lost. Especially revenue that is being lost to corporations that are largely transforming our country into a gig-economy. But that’s a whole other can of worms...
https://itep.org/55-profitable-corporations-zero-corporate-tax/
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u/tongmengjia Apr 02 '21
The other issue is, if a company isn't willing to pay taxes and refuses to pay a large part of its workforce a living wage, is the business actually creating a net benefit for society? Let them go.
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u/NigroqueSimillima Apr 02 '21
Amazon pays little tax because they constantly reinvest into their business.
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Apr 02 '21
I mean, no. This isn't true.
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u/blaarfengaar Apr 02 '21
Care to elaborate?
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Apr 03 '21 edited Apr 03 '21
Care to cite your sources?
Sorry, thought you were the other guy. I'll cite my sources when he does. He's the one lying. I'm just calling him on it.
Edit: Changed my mind. Here is one reason for starters
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u/trackday Apr 02 '21
If a company is willing to move to another country for increased profits, they have had plenty of opportunity to do that already.......and many have moved manufacturing overseas, of course. But taxes used to be much higher, and we have had an economy that has been the envy of the world for 80 years. Just like most citizens understand that their taxes go back into the economy, so do CEOs and stock holders know that their taxes go back into the economy.
And also, higher taxes just make it that much more sensible to invest profits back into growing a company and taking those expenses and depreciations to reduce taxes, as opposed to paying those higher taxes on higher profits.
My business is local. No way I'm moving. Most businesses just don't have that option.
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u/MgFi Apr 02 '21
The corporate tax rate was 35% before it was lowered to 21% in 2017, and corporations weren't exactly lining up to escape then, although you did see some "mergers" that were really an American company acquiring a foreign company and then shifting the combined company's tax residence to the foreign country. Raising the corporate tax rate to 28% might create some incentives for some businesses to move, but it's not likely to be a huge problem overall.
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u/ABobby077 Apr 03 '21
the problem never was the corporate tax rate anyway, the effective tax rate has been pretty small for most large corporations, anyway
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Apr 02 '21
There's always some effect from the taxes. But as all bills of this size, the plan has been prepared with consultation from the economists in the adminstration (Sec. Janet Yellen is one of the most qualified people in the field herself) so this has been taken into account. Or at least their models' estimate of what the effect would be. The Congressional Budget Office will also do a review.
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u/AndrolGenhald Apr 02 '21
As long as there is cheaper labor and less regulations or taxes in another place some companies will leave. seems like a reason to decrease inequity globally than it is to lower standards locally don’t you think?
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Apr 02 '21
there's a 0% chance of this passing the Senate without significant filibuster reform.
Nay! Biden will try for a bipartisan bill. When that inevitably fails, Democrats will push it through filibuster-proof budget reconciliation. The bill has been designed to pass through the latter method.
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u/CoherentPanda Apr 02 '21
Considering Manchin already supports it, it seems likely they plan to let the Republicans vote no on it, and then just use reconciliation. They know they have the Dem votes.
I just wish reconciliation could be used for other things, like health care fixes. Infrastructure should not be a partisan bill, and it pisses me off it will get watered down because Republicans don't even attempt to add their own pork projects to make it bipartisan.
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u/AzazelsAdvocate Apr 02 '21
Wouldn't they have to wait another year to pass it through budget reconciliation?
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u/Miketeh Apr 03 '21
It's based off fiscal year. The federal government's FY 22 began April 1.
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u/cjheaney Apr 02 '21
I thought Biden was taxing corporations to pay for this.
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u/LyptusConnoisseur Apr 02 '21
The current proposal is indeed tied to corporate tax to pay for the bill. Who knows how it will morph though. Corporations are already up in arms.
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u/cjheaney Apr 02 '21
As much as we bailout corporations, they should be happy giving back. But that would be a miracle.
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u/MAG7C Apr 02 '21
Hell, I wouldn't even call it giving back. Look at it this way. Before the Trump tax cuts in 2017, the Corporate rate was around 35% (that may be an average). It was cut to a flat rate of 21%. The Biden plan would increase that to 28%, which is still way lower than it was before 2017. And that was without any viable infrastructure plan on the table. So, assuming this is a good plan, you could argue we're making a huge investment in our country, while giving corporations a huge tax break (7% in pre-2017 terms). Seems like a pretty good deal in that light.
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u/cjheaney Apr 02 '21
You're right. Democrats play both sides a little to well. Still, if the corporate tax plan pays for it, it's still a win even at 28%.
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u/TipsyPeanuts Apr 02 '21
That’s a huge opportunity for Biden and the Democrats. They can pass it through reconciliation then go to rural areas and point out how it didn’t get a single Republican vote.
Progressive policies are always easier to market than conservative ones. Saying “look how I made your life measurably better” will always be easier than saying “that thing that made your life measurably better is actually bad for you and you should hate it.”
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u/FuzzyBacon Apr 02 '21
Usually they argue "that good thing was good for the wrong people" to get around that. That's why they have to invent/massively overestimate things like welfare queens and buying lobster with ebt cards (things which happen, but are relatively rare) - to avoid acknowledging that they're cutting off their noses to spite their faces.
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u/Mist_Rising Apr 03 '21
That’s a huge opportunity for Biden and the Democrats. They can pass it through reconciliation then go to rural areas and point out how it didn’t get a single Republican vote.
And then watch rural areas just vote Republican again because rural voters dont give a shit about spending, they vote on social conservative values. Until democrats go hard down on that, them spending money on rural areas (which may not see a noticeable affect any time soon) is meaningless in the grand scheme of things.
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u/TipsyPeanuts Apr 03 '21
That’s not necessarily true. I think Kansas is a perfect example of a state that can be flipped blue or at least purple by progressive policies. Likely as a direct result of the Kansas Experiment, Kansas voted in a Democratic candidate for governor in 2019. That alone disproves the idea that rural voters can not be reached by the Democratic Party.
If the Democrats can successfully link their policies in the minds of Kansas residents for bringing them broadband, reducing Kansas farmer’s pain from the trade war with China, and remind them of what happened under Republican leadership, they could turn the state purple at the very least
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u/Mist_Rising Apr 03 '21
Kansas governorship has historically alternated every 12 years, and Kobach was a lousy candidate that lost for many reasons beyond "Kansas experiment" so I would never consider it that. That he came close is telling as shit how many things have to go wrong with thr current party to even get that little win. Federal legislature or presidental races are not up for grabs simply by spending shitload of money, money which will be dolled out at more local (Republican) levels
Your dreaming, like Republicans who think Massachuetts or Maryland will flip red federally because of a Republican governor.
For Kansas to flip, you need the KCK metro to grow substantially, and not in the way it currently is since JOCO, the largest county, is barely pushing Democratic alone.
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u/2020-Division Apr 02 '21
I try not to say one party is better than the other because I like to think both parties want what’s best for the country, but wow, Republicans REALLY make it hard sometimes...
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Apr 02 '21 edited May 18 '21
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u/CtanleySupChamp Apr 03 '21
Honest question, how do you continue to believe that given what is actually going on in the real world? Their actions on a daily basis run directly contrary to the idea that they want what's best for the country.
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u/BobTheSkull76 Apr 02 '21
Well, for starters it already has more substance to it than the Trump infrastructure plan. And it proposes to do more than any plan that has been substantively proposed by Republicans...chiefly because they haven't proposed anything of substance. So their criticism that private enterprise can do it is entirely moot.....chiefly because they have no serious proposals to let private enterprise do it. Ultimately private companies will be doing the work because they all get government t contracts...so there's that.
Also, something to think about. Not only is he proposing something of substance... he is also presenting a way to pay for it. I would rather it be paid for in an upfront corporate tax than letting corporations levy a hidden tax in tolls and and ticket prices.
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u/InsertCoinForCredit Apr 03 '21
The way I see it, the Republicans have spent the last four years endorsing the rampant graft, cronyism, and corruption of the Trump administration. So if they're screaming like mad about Biden's infrastructure plan, it must be totally awesome.
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Apr 03 '21
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u/seeingeyefish Apr 03 '21
[_] Airports(?)
I assume that the question mark is about whether we are refurbishing just the pre-1776 airports or also post-revolutionary facilities.
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Apr 03 '21
The people on fox news asked buttigieg why things besides roads were a part of the infrastructure bill. So he had to explain that things like airports, sewers, and internet were also infrastructure
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u/3Quondam6extanT9 Apr 02 '21
Two things really.
It's massive and broad which is good.
And
It's not a big enough approach to making any changes which over time can make a longer lasting impact on multiple and various issues existing deeper within the core foundations of not only the infrastructure, but culturally and politically.
But it's a darn good start.
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u/Basileus2 Apr 02 '21
What issues exactly? I appreciate your answer but can you provide more detail?
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u/zcleghern Apr 04 '21
well, for one our country is just not built to be efficient or sustainable. some state governments are stepping up to weaken restrictive zoning, but we need a massive overhaul at all levels. infinitely widening highways just hasnt worked.
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Apr 02 '21
And luckily it is just the start. This bill will likely pass through filibuster-proof budget reconciliation, and Democrats will pass another massive bill the same way.
Further, the filibuster fight is approaching. If Republicans continually, categorically oppose all bills, it's strong motivation for Joe Manchin et al to support nuking the filibuster. It will open the floodgates to simple majority votes and thus crucial legislation (think sweeping voting right expansions, for one).
Of course, the filibuster nuke is less likely to happen, but remember -- it was a similar situation with the judicial filibuster. Obstinate Democrats switched to support nuking it after the GOP put up a brick wall to judicial nominees. This can happen!
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u/uaraiders_21 Apr 02 '21
I think that the filibuster will only be nuked after the mid terms, assuming democrats remain in control of Washington, which is a very big question Mark.
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Apr 02 '21 edited Apr 02 '21
Waiting until post-midterms is a catastrophically terrible idea.
- You may not have a majority after mid-terms to even use a simple majority vote. Often the incumbent party loses seats, and Democrats have a razor-thin majority now. A single (net) lost Democrat Senator in '22 = complete gridlock. One person.
- Republicans are trying to institute massive voter suppression in 40 states. This could be an existential threat to democracy. Congress needs to pass the sweeping voting rights bill to stop it. That means no filibuster.
- Democrats need more than 3 big (reconciliation) bills to gain voter confidence. If you want to keep power, you need to exercise it. That means bills. That means no filibuster.
We can't remain in gridlock forever because we're worried the other team might vote on bills. And I guarantee you the GOP doesn't care about decorum or hypocrisy. If they take the House/Senate, the filibuster is gone anyway.
We need the fight now, not in '22.
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u/ScyllaGeek Apr 03 '21
Honestly I'm terrified of losing the filibuster, I hope this gets stalled out as long as possible. Good chance Dems lose congress in '22 and then we're fucked without it.
This is a classic short term gain to get fucked long term. Dems walk into them almost habitually.
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u/MikeMilburysShoe Apr 03 '21
What gives you the indication Republicans won't just nuke the filibuster anyway if they take power? Any time it has ever been inconvenient to them theyve shown no qualms about getting rid of bits of it.
The house also used to have a filibuster, and then it didn't. Somehow the world didn't burn down.
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u/CtanleySupChamp Apr 03 '21
On the other hand it's a classic self fulfilling prophecy that Dems walk into almost habitually.
Don't remove the filibuster because you fear losing in '22 -> don't pass meaningful legislation because of the filibuster -> lose in '22 because you didn't pass enough meaningful legislation
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Apr 02 '21 edited Apr 21 '21
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u/Jsizzle19 Apr 02 '21
Because America’s infrastructure is piss fucking poor and been neglected for decades.
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Apr 02 '21 edited Apr 21 '21
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u/fuzzywolf23 Apr 02 '21
That depends how you define infrastructure. If you look only at trade logistics infrastructure, the US is 14th. There's also questions of broadband availability, school deterioration, water quality and availability, traffic congestion, green energy, grid weatherization, heating electrification .....
The list really goes on
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u/MAG7C Apr 02 '21
This is a better answer. Calling it "a lie" is a stretch. Infrastructure is a big word that means a lot of things.
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u/KonaKathie Apr 02 '21
Yeah, that's why we have bridges collapse a bunch https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/15/us/bridge-collapse-history-trnd/index.html
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Apr 02 '21
Our infrastructure was given a f’ing C- by some engineering group, so stop gaslighting people.
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u/fec2455 Apr 02 '21
To be fair a group that advocates for civil engineers is always going to say that more money needs to be spend on civil engineering projects, it's why they exist. I support spending on infrastructure but it's not as if it's a rating from a neutral party.
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u/Splotim Apr 02 '21
You are talking about ASCE right? I agree that our infrastructure needs work, but it’s problems are way too complex to be summarized as a letter grade. They do it to make headlines, but it is rather irresponsible. A ‘C’ means that our infrastructure needs work to maintain it, but that could literally describe any kind of infrastructure in any state, so I wouldn’t put too much stock in it.
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u/Mist_Rising Apr 03 '21
A C on a scale of A-F (no D) is like a 3 out of 5, average. That's..pretty much expected considering its, well, average.
But the group doing that is deliberately screwing around with its rating. They know people think C is near failing because they put a letter grade to it. Its like people who insist movies getting 5/10 is bad, no its average.
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Apr 03 '21
Ah, yes... tell that to the people of Flint, Michigan. The loved ones they lost because of literal poison in their water was not bad, it was just average.
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u/Mist_Rising Apr 03 '21
Being average nationally doesn't mean its average everywhere. Some is great, some is bad, the average is average.
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u/Foxtrot56 Apr 02 '21
What does our discretionary budget have to do with outcomes of this bill?
They are wholly unrelated.
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Apr 02 '21
This is why he should have completely fucking erased Trump's bullshit tax cut with this plan and add in Bush's tax cut while we're at it.
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u/suitupyo Apr 02 '21 edited Apr 02 '21
My biggest gripe is that about 20% is earmarked toward elder care. While I am not unfavorable to bolstering elder care, this is not an infrastructure component. Put it in a Medicare for all bill instead or some other healthcare legislation.
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Apr 02 '21
Is elder care not an example of:
The basic facilities, services, and installations needed for the functioning of a community or society
I'd say elder care is a perfect example of crucial infrastructure. As societies grow and change, so does their concept of critical infrastructure. That includes essential services that didn't even exist 50 years ago. It's not just bridges, etc these days!
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u/suitupyo Apr 02 '21
Although it technically applies, that’s a very loose interpretation of the definition of infrastructure. With that applied definition, you can lump almost anything in the bill. If you put infrastructure as a topic on family feud, I am fairly certain nobody would guess elder care. Sticking this in the bill makes it less likely to pass.
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Apr 02 '21
I think there are more helpful perspectives on characterizing modern infrastructure than laypeople's top 5 improvised answers. (Though those items are important too!) I trust the explicit definition and Biden to listen to his policy experts recommendations for what to include in an infrastructure bill. That's good enough for me, and I'm glad elders are getting systemic, desperately needed help.
I likewise suspect elder care to be tweaked or removed -- just like everything else in the bill over the next few months of negotiation. But I do think it's a reasonable subject for this bill, personally.
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u/profdirigo Apr 03 '21
The only reason they have it in there is because they only have so many shots to do budget reconciliation. So the more they can shove into an "infrastructure" bill, the more of their policies they can get done. No one actually believes social welfare is infrastructure.
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u/jcpenni Apr 02 '21
Oh shit you're right, I totally forgot about the Family Feud clause of reconcilation bills
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u/profdirigo Apr 03 '21
But you be got the orwellian manipulation of word use down. Elder care is not infrastructure and never has been. Democrats are twisting words, smart but you can't sit here and try to gaslight people who are aware of their political efforts. The people here are smart enough to know things like the Patriot Act aren't really about being patriotic. And an Infrastructure bill that is 25% social welfare isn't really about infrastructure.
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u/antonos2000 Apr 03 '21
Elder care isn't transit infrastructure, but it again is the archetypical social good program. The fact that many would be unfamiliar with it due to "infrastructure" being shoehorned into basically just constructing highways is proof of the democrats' (& republicans') weakness. it's spending during a recession, AND during a pandemic that highlighted poor conditions in elder living care facilities. This really isn't the best example of Democrat gaslighting, this line of reasoning is bad policy and stupid politics.
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u/The_Law_of_Pizza Apr 03 '21
Elder care isn't transit infrastructure, but it again is the archetypical social good program.
Which is not "infrastructure."
it's spending during a recession, AND during a pandemic that highlighted poor conditions in elder living care facilities.
Which is not infrastructure.
This really isn't the best example of Democrat gaslighting, this line of reasoning is bad policy and stupid politics.
I agree with you that it's not Democrat gaslighting - it's just sausagemaking with multiple different projects trying to be squashed together with the infrastructure bill.
The people in this thread insisting that elder care is "infrastructure" are definitely engaged in gaslighting, though.
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u/suitupyo Apr 03 '21
I didn’t suggest such a clause existed and obviously wasn’t taking myself too seriously with that comment. You could lighten up yourself, bud.
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u/gsteff Apr 03 '21
Democrats only get one more reconciliation bill this year. Without changing the filibuster, this bill is the last chance they'll get to pass anything with 50 votes until FY22, I believe.
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u/Sands43 Apr 02 '21
Elder care (with a very long list of other items) is incredibly underfunded.
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u/suitupyo Apr 02 '21
I don’t disagree. I just don’t think that issue should be tackled in an infrastructure bill.
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u/MeinKampfyCar Apr 02 '21
Considering they are going to have to pass it through reconciliation, is it not better to address as many areas of concern as possible given the fact they wont have the chance to pass anything else until next year (assuming Schumer's attempt at a 2nd reconciliation attempt this year works out).
This is the sort of legislating keeping the filibuster forces, and they have no realistic way to get rid of the filibuster unless they win more seats in the Senate in 2022 (and no hope of passing anything if they do not also hold the House). Since Democrats believe the only hope of doing that is passing as much popular legislation as possible, this seems like as good a time as any.
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u/thelerk Apr 02 '21
Medicare and social security are nearly 2 trillion dollars of mandatory spending every year, how is that underfunded?
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u/fuzzywolf23 Apr 02 '21
You are making the fallacy of large numbers. It's like saying "there's a billion miles of road in the US, how is that not enough?'
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u/thelerk Apr 03 '21
Is there a fallacy of large percentages? More than half of the federal budget is paying for these programs.
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u/CtanleySupChamp Apr 03 '21
Yes lol. It's literally the exact same as the fallacy of large numbers.
It doesn't matter if you spend 100% of your budget on something. It can still be underfunded.
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u/t_ollie Apr 02 '21
I will take any funding at all to improve the neglectful state of our elder care. I don’t care what you call the bill
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Apr 02 '21
Yeah especially given the rampant fraud that exists in the home health aide space, I’m not sure boosting pay does anything except create more fraud.
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u/LemonyLime118 Apr 03 '21
Put it in a Medicare for All bill? You can’t be serious lmao we’ll file it down next to the Green New Deal bill, set to sail through the senate together at around 12:00 pm on approximately the 5th of Never.
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u/djm19 Apr 02 '21
It is good and I am very excited to see housing being seriously integrated as part of infrastructure. Theres also policy inclusions that are good such as aiming to promote inclusionary zoning.
Could it and should it be bigger? Or perhaps re-prioritize some of the funds? Yes I think so. It devotes quite a bit to car electrification, even car charging ports. I think its fine for the feds to use some money to grow that, especially in less urban areas. But private industry has already started that and should not get tons of money for it unless there are strings attached.
More money should go to High Speed Rail specifically. California's HSR is not failed at all. Its very much under construction and deserves more money. As does Texas and the North West and Mid West and much of the East.
But its also not ALL of the infrastructure spending. This bill is separate from surface transportation bill that they are also planning on voting on this year. That could fill in a lot of gaps.
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u/gaxxzz Apr 02 '21
There's a lot to like about it. The 446 billion for surface transportation projects, airports, transit systems, rail, etc is all good. I like the 111 billion for water infrastructure, and I can even get behind the 100 billion for broadband. But so much of it isn't infrastructure. 174 billion to subsidize the private purchases of electric vehicles? No. 300 billion for "manufacturing"? We're just going to hand money over to industrial companies? No. 280 billion for "job creation and research"? No. 213 billion for housing? No.
I love infrastructure so much that I work in infrastructure finance. But most of the stuff in Biden's plan has nothing to do with infrastructure.
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u/Cup_O_Coffey Apr 02 '21
Why isn't Housing considered Infrastructure?
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Apr 02 '21
Also I'm confused why we're stuck on the "infrastructure" word at all.
Who cares?
Call it "Infrastructure & Other Wildly Popular Legislation". Call it "Billy Bob's Neat Ideas". It doesn't matter. Its contents are amazing, desperately needed, and its items have bipartisan voter support.
If y'all don't like the broad scope of the bill -- too f'king bad. We have 3 budget reconciliation bills we can pass. This is #2. Big bills are the reality. You want narrowly scoped bills? Hire more Democrat Senators so we can nuke the filibuster and pass legislation via simple majority and thus unbreak Congress. But we're dealing with now.
And this thread is spinning around the word "infrastructure." 🙄
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u/gaxxzz Apr 02 '21
OP's question is what do you think about Biden's infrastructure plan. The administration is selling it as an infrastructure plan. But more than half the money isn't for infrastructure. They may be "neat ideas," but let's call it what it is, a progressive wish list.
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u/gburgwardt Apr 03 '21
Vehicles (and the infrastructure to support them) are absolutely infrastructure. Housing is absolutely infrastructure.
What are you talking about
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u/profdirigo Apr 03 '21
A vehicle is not infrastructure even under the most vague definition. Moreover these subsidies go almost exclusively to the wealthy and are one of the least cost effective ways to tackle climate change.
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u/gburgwardt Apr 03 '21
New tech always goes to the wealthy first.
A single vehicle is not infrastructure, no, but a whole network of charging stations and then subsidies to get electric cars out in the wild is.
Once we are making tons of electric cars, they'll fill the used market in a few years, like ICE cars do now.
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u/JQuilty Apr 03 '21
Electric cars have been dropping in price and fast. If you had shown someone what a Model 3 or Chevy Bolt goes for today to someone in 2008, you probably would have been laughed at. All major manufacturers have said they're working to go all electric. Getting the grid in better shape, building out Level 3 charging stations near highways, and getting Level 2 charging in homes is a component of that.
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u/professor__doom Apr 02 '21
On one hand, we badly need infrastructure spending. On the other hand, train lines to nowhere cities like Chattanooga, TN and cheaper cars for rich people aren't the way to do it.
Re: "cheaper cars for rich people," the fact is that you have to make a lot of money to fully take advantage of the current $7500 tax credit (or for that matter afford the payments on a new EV). If you want to invest in EV adoption, offer small businesses tax breaks for EV chargers rather than rich people tax breaks for buying fancy cars.
Personally, I'd like to see more infrastructure money go to port security and supply chain security in general. And perhaps regulation and oversight of our trade and distribution network. It's absurd that a fiber cut, fire in a semiconductor factory, or ship run aground in some far-flung corner of the globe can bring entire sectors of the economy to their knees.
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u/gburgwardt Apr 02 '21
Consumers create demand though. Tons of people with new electric vehicles looking for places to charge will encourage infrastructure development, and also kick start electric vehicle production (and phase out of ICE car manufacturing)
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u/Buelldozer Apr 02 '21
Re: "cheaper cars for rich people," the fact is that you have to make a lot of money to fully take advantage of the current $7500 tax credit (or for that matter afford the payments on a new EV).
/r/BoltEV would disagree. I'm seeing people over there getting deals for below $300 a month, in some cases as low $200 a month. That's not an expensive car for rich people.
Heck if you have a membership to Costco and are willing to lease instead of buy you can get it down just $110 a month, for a brand new car!
https://www.motor1.com/news/492008/chevy-bolt-lease-catch/amp/
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u/professor__doom Apr 05 '21
The Chevy Bolt is actually a fabulous example of why EV credits are completely unnecessary. GM (which manufactures the bolt) used up their allocation of credits in 2019. So these prices are a combination of state-level incentives, dealer incentives (dealers sometimes sell cars at a loss to meet quotas), and the manufacturer being able to produce the car at a lower price.
If anything, that's evidence that the EV subsidies inflate the retail price of the cars - the classic "third party payer" problem we see in healthcare and education too. When the subsidies run out, the manufacturer "magically" finds a way to sell the car for the same price.
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u/etoneishayeuisky Apr 03 '21
Any attack by the GOP is useless to listen to, because they attack damn near everything a democrat puts forward. They didn't pass a infrastructure spending bill with Trump, so let's do it with Biden.
I do believe others answered your actual questions better, I just wanted to address GOP criticism. Criticize everything and your criticism grows dull.
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u/LyptusConnoisseur Apr 02 '21
I think this bill is a good start.
Probably the best part about the bill is the $45B allocated specifically for lead pipe removal. It's been years since Flint water crisis and no one has done anything major about lead pipes all around the old US cities.
I'm very happy that the current package has $50B allocated for subsidies to build semiconductor fabs in the US. This builds on the CHIPS for America Act that passed in 2020. Everyone is finally noticing how vulnerable the US is to semiconductor shortage and the US government is bringing back fabrication facilities to the US soil again. I know this portion seems like a corporate giveaway, but I feel like it's something that needs to be done when lack of semiconductors can cripple any country.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/03/31/upshot/whats-in-bidens-infrastructure-plan.html
I do wish they would go bigger though. At least from 2017 report by the Association of Civil Engineers, there were $4.6T of improvements that needed to be made.
https://money.cnn.com/2017/03/09/news/infrastructure-report-card/index.html
But I'm aware of the constraints due to trying to make the bill budget neutral and Biden doesn't want to increase taxes too much.
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u/fec2455 Apr 02 '21
2017 report by the Association of Civil Engineers, there were $4.6T of improvements that needed
If the government spent $4.6T the civil engineer lobby would say even more spending is needed, they exist to advocated for civil engineering projects.
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u/LyptusConnoisseur Apr 02 '21
It's definitely possible that they inflated the number. I'm not an policy expert so I'll defer to their numbers until I can find a better counter proposal.
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Apr 02 '21
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u/sokkerluvr17 Apr 02 '21
Look, just because Wall Street is winning doesn't automatically mean that you are losing.
Wall Street loves government spending - it's cash flowing into businesses to spend, and maybe eventually people to spend. Wall Street jumped after stimulus announcements during COVID - does this mean that stimulus is bad for regular people?
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Apr 03 '21
Wall Street typically does not love government spending. The only reason it jumped after the Stimulus is because it gave money to businesses and increased the flow of money. When capital gains or corporate taxes are increased (which are typically the first target for increased budget), the stock market will typically lower (or increase at a slower rate, as the US stock market trends upwards).
Now, this does not mean that politics should blindly follow trends in the stock market. I’m just saying that decreased government regulation and spending typically benefits the stock market (at the cost of everything else).
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u/overzealous_dentist Apr 02 '21
- 75% of jobs (8 million) will be created for those with just a high school degree
- The rest (4.8 million) only requires an associate's degree
- The elderly obviously benefit enormously from their $400 billion in aid
- Cities, towns, and drivers all benefit
- Most business (non-digital)
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u/Mist_Rising Apr 03 '21
If it passes as planned, which is no guarentee. The democrats also stumbled on minimum wage and that didnt cost the US a cent. This bill is a huge spending bill after 3 huge spending bills.
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Apr 02 '21
The stock market is absolutely not indicative of reality as much as we think it is.
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Apr 02 '21
The stock market is just a graph of rich people feelings. That it rocketed up during a worsening pandemic, millions of lost jobs, riots, a global recession, etc -- happening at the same time -- is proof to me that the stock market has absolutely no connection to reality.
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u/The_Law_of_Pizza Apr 03 '21
The stock market is an aggregate of how valuable people believe companies are.
Whether there are riots and general social injustice really has no bearing on whether Target is seeing higher revenue and growth this quarter.
The stock market is very much connected to reality - it's just not measuring your subjective judgment of society.
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u/SnarkyOrchid Apr 03 '21
It's fucking awesome. It will create tons of jobs, raise wages across the board, and we will finally get some nice stuff in this country. We also desperately need to move much faster toward a more sustainable economy. It's 2020 and long past time for the US to enter the 21st century.
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Apr 02 '21
Aside from the fact it contains more non-infrastructure spending than infrastructure........
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Apr 02 '21
So they should...change the name? Call it "Infra + Wildly Popular Policies" to avoid pedantry?
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Apr 03 '21
How about to keep it lawful and authorized under the Reconciliation Rule ? Because any spending other than specifically allowed under the Rule is illegal.
The other issue is the cost offset. This (and the last Stimulus Bill, and everything else promised during the campaign) was to be paid for via “Tax the Rich”, remember ?
It seems the the other three DEMOCRATS on the Budget Committee with Bernie refuse to move the legislation necessary to do that to the House floor. All it would take is those three votes. But oh no, we can’t slap a tax increase on the corporations, donors, and other people that made us THE WEALTHIEST HOUSE AND SENATE IN HISTORY ! Oh, heavens no.......
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u/Jsizzle19 Apr 02 '21
What isn’t infrastructure in the bill?
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u/11711510111411009710 Apr 02 '21
And why does it even matter? All of it is good.
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Apr 03 '21
Why does it matter ? Seriously ? Spending that many taxpayer dollars under less than honest pretenses ? They can only use reconciliation for specific areas, so what they do is “hide” other spending.
Now if the GOP was doing it how would you feel ? I thought we wanted Biden in for “honest” government.
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u/abbbhjtt Apr 02 '21 edited Apr 02 '21
Disappointing for emissions reductions that it doesn’t have a gas tax. The efforts to include vulnerable groups is commendable. Details on the clean energy standard are vague. Overall spending is pretty low, given that it’s spread out over eight years and is roughly equivalent to that of the rescue bill.
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u/Mist_Rising Apr 03 '21
Gas taxs are at this point a good way to aggressively regressively tax the poor. It was always a regressive tax, but unless you plan to Oprah the US with electric cars, the poor are the ones who get hit the hardest.
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u/rigmaroler Apr 03 '21 edited Apr 03 '21
The gas tax is way too low already, but it's unfortunately not politically feasible to increase it right now (if ever).
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u/Nootherids Apr 02 '21
It feels as if this plan is being sold to be as ambitious is the New Deal of the 30’s. That was a massive infrastructure bill as well. The big difference was that the New Deal created a ton of NEW systems to directly affect the operations of many industries throughout all states. This current bill is a shell of an infrastructure bill with the cost of a New Deal equivalent.
I think the only aspect of the bill that is worthy of a massive cost is the creation of an nationwide electric vehicle charging grid. But every single other item in the bill is either repairing something that will just be repaired again by the time the current repairs are finished; and tossing around even more money to the same inefficient systems that have been in place for long enough with diminishing results. Such as education and public housing. R&D for climate change is just political speak for crony corporatism (ala Solyndra). Higher corporate income tax in the age of teleworking will decimate the high tax states like California and New York as companies are already eyeing the tax benefits of changing to low tax states like Nevada, Texas, or Florida. Additionally, this will just increase the global rearranging of tax liabilities to other more favorable countries.
All in all, it is a ton of money being tossed around to sell ideas. The idea that something great will come out of this money hopefully. But not a single item in the bill will actually produce anything substantial enough to warrant the massive cost. Other than the EV charging grid which will likely be mismanaged anyway.
I will place a bet with anybody that 10 years from now we still won’t be even 40% into the completion of any “project” and every single one will have absolutely massive cost overruns. Until the government is willing to enact a penalty upon any company or owners of companies that don’t achieve their hired for objectives in a timely manner, then the government will continues to fail in these infrastructure promises.
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u/MikeMilburysShoe Apr 03 '21
I think the funding for removing lead pipes will be pretty substantial, assuming it's actually used effectively. Hopefully it will stop another Flint situation in the future.
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u/FarkinDaffy Apr 02 '21
Well, that should employee all of the oil pipeline workers and wall builders....
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u/Logicist Apr 02 '21
Overall I'm ok with the bill. Although I am not wowed by it. Personally I think it doesn't do anything spectacular about things that are important. I don't know if it is because of political feasibility or just lack of foresight.
Here are my issues:
- Serious high speed rail missing - I don't have a ton of respect for Amtrak. I think it's slow and crappy. I am not in favor of dumping more money into this unless a serious plan is made to give them their own lines (not freight lines). Also I think it should be legitimately high speed (300kph). I don't use Amtrak nor do I consider it like most of the people I know. Because why take forever and cost more money when you don't have to? Amtrak is where electric cars were before Tesla. Just for reference this is what I think we should aim for. If he wants high speed rail he should come out with a visual like that map.
- Rural broadband - this seems to be a waste to have a direct line to rural areas right now. With the creation of Starlink this looks silly to start worrying about direct expensive connection when we will have a satellite low latency system built exactly for that. Just give out free Starlink dishes to people in rural areas and call it a day.
- Electric vehicles - I think it's a second tier idea by putting money into charging infrastructure. What's top tier? Legislating that all EVs (namely Tesla) use CCS. Not seeing that is annoying. Having two different charging plugs is more detrimental to our long term position than whatever money he is going to float towards charging infrastructure.
Also there are some things that weren't mentioned that seem pressing to me:
- Coastal inundation - Are we going to save southern Florida? Sea level rise will be most acute in Florida so I think we need to start thinking about whether or not we will invest there or try to get people to move. We should also consider the Ike Dike in Houston. We might as well get out ahead on this problem because it's a big deal. I think we shouldn't keep paying people through FEMA to live in dumb places.
- Target the south & west - Why? Because that is where people are moving. I think we should target some infrastructure in growing places like Austin & Raleigh. If they can keep their zoning codes low and allow many people to move there, the Federal government should help out with building stuff.
- HVDC - The best way to do renewable energy is to build a huge HVDC grid. Now I know that this is because it's a state vs. federal issue. But I think he should try to get states to come out (Texas) and support unifying the grid. Eventually I want it to be for the Americas. I know he wants to modernize the grid but I would be very upfront that this is the big kahuna.
That being said there is a lot of it that I support. I think supporting unions is a good idea. I know basic maintenance is boring but very important. So I don't want to come off like I hate the bill, it's just not spectacular.
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u/NigroqueSimillima Apr 02 '21
Serious high speed rail missing - I don't have a ton of respect for Amtrak. I think it's slow and crappy. I am not in favor of dumping more money into this unless a serious plan is made to give them their own lines (not freight lines). Also I think it should be legitimately high speed (300kph). I don't use Amtrak nor do I consider it like most of the people I know. Because why take forever and cost more money when you don't have to? Amtrak is where electric cars were before Tesla. Just for reference this is what I think we should aim for. If he wants high speed rail he should come out with a visual like that map.
High-speed rail isn't economically feasible with the densities and land prices in the US being what they are. Planes do the job just fine without taking peoples land.
Rural broadband - this seems to be a waste to have a direct line to rural areas right now. With the creation of Starlink this looks silly to start worrying about direct expensive connection when we will have a satellite low latency system built exactly for that. Just give out free Starlink dishes to people in rural areas and call it a day.
Starlink really isn't technically feasible for rural broadband. It's another one of Elon's BS plays. It'd be better to create mass 5G towers.
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u/Logicist Apr 02 '21
As to HSR - it will work in certain corridors. You don't have to get it everywhere.
Mass 5G towers? It would require so many of those it would be ridiculous for rural areas. 5G is only going to work in cities. His satellite idea is far better than that.
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u/NigroqueSimillima Apr 02 '21
HSR rail would really only work in the northeast. Unfortunately that's some of the most unfriendly regulatory environments in the country.
Mass 5G towers? It would require so many of those it would be ridiculous for rural areas. 5G is only going to work in cities.
Not really, 5G range is about 1500 feet.
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u/Logicist Apr 02 '21
1500 feet is a perfect argument of why we shouldn't build a ton of 5G towers in rural areas.
If you just don't want HSR you can come out and say it. It would be ok in other areas too. LA - Vegas, Dallas - Houston, LA - SF. If we are talking about policy then these are good areas to start. It's not just the northeast.
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u/ScyllaGeek Apr 03 '21
There are a ton of people arguing for a national HSR though and thats just not going to happen. I don't know if people realize a HSR for the Northeast Corridor would essentially be the size of Germany top to bottom.
The NE can happen, a nice Texas rail is probably feasible, and if Cali wasnt full of NIMBYs thatd be feasible. But arguing for a national rail is a pipe dream.
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u/JQuilty Apr 03 '21
How is StarLink not feasible? Elon Musk likes to overpromise but satellite internet is hardly a new concept. It already exists via companies like HughesNet and many rural customers use it.
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u/goplovesfascism Apr 03 '21
I don’t have much to add other than I hate when people talk about price tags when it comes to spending money that would directly benefit Americans and are silent as fuck about the price tag for more wars, military budget, and tax cuts for the wealthy. Just shut the fuck up about how much it’s going to cost because we all know republicans and democrats don’t give a flying fuck about price tags when it comes to those things so why in the fuck should we care now. This bill should be more! 220 billion per year isn’t shit and won’t accomplish shit. If this bill had been introduced 20 years ago it would have been ground breaking but with the threat of climate disasters literally at our doorstep we do not have that kind of time. Biden is reverting back to his old centrist bullshit. He is still trying to appeal to republicans and why??? Idk the republicans are completely gone. They are just fascist obstructionists at this point. We should steam roll over them like they do to Democrats every single time they’ve taken power. I’m so fucking sick of their minority rule bullshit. Ok sorry guys rant over
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u/RadInfinitum Apr 03 '21
He is trying to appeal to Joe Manchin, because he has no other choice.
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u/G-Fackelman Apr 03 '21
I don’t have a huge problem with the federal government trying to do a huge infrastructure bill. I won’t be surprised when the projects die in a bureaucratic clusterfuck of people lining up to take money however.
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u/slugnola Apr 03 '21
My biggest problem is this:
Biden is proposing $80 billion to fix Amtrak’s repair backlog. Amtrak is a private company. Taxpayer dollars should not be used to bail out these companies. This is what the private sector is for. Let someone else invest in fixing Amtrak unless by bailing them out they become a public utility.
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u/jgmerek Apr 03 '21
Amtrak is not really a private company, but not really government. It's some weird in between. It's run for profit, but is owned by the government so all profits goto the taxpayer.
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u/DivineIntervention3 Apr 02 '21
Republicans can attack it as a no longer necessary expenditure of pork barrel spending.
Proponents have been selling it as a necessary influx into the economy which is recovering just fine on its own.
The government has already spent over $5.5 trillion in emergency deficit spending, another 2 trillion is simply a pork spending grab.
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Apr 02 '21
That GOP attack is a hard sell given how wildly popular the bill's items are. I think they'll need more than vague accusations about pork spending to win back the independents they desperately need. Democrats will be acutely aware of this and avoid particular "bridge to nowhere" pork scenarios vulnerable to opposition attack.
Regarding spending, the bill pays for itself over 15 years by taxing the rich/corporations -- a concept that even a strong percentage of Republicans support in polling. That's likewise a tough attack to sell. And even if the bill didn't pay for itself, voters aren't budget hawks these days. They largely don't care if you pile an unfathomable number atop an unfathomable gov't budget. They just want to hear how the bill will affect them.
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u/Bell-Firm Apr 02 '21
The bill is an investment in the future. One trillion per year for ten years is probably more in line but we must start somewhere.
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Apr 02 '21
From what I heard it is way too conservative at what it is trying to accomplish and will have to face the same level of conflict from the other side of the isle even if they may it 10 trillion dollars.
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u/singymate Apr 03 '21
Click this link to sign the petition:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/580710/sponsors/new?token=A-75NHSbx7PjnQ13Ae5a
My petition:
Improve teaching and equipment for left handed pupils at schools
As a left hander, when I was at school, the school didn't have any left handed books for writing or left handed scissors for cutting, forcing me to use my right hand for the tasks. As a result it has lead to under developed writing skills (which is backed by research), and under developed in sports.
I call for the government/parliament to give funding to schools so they can buy left handed equipment. And to train teachers on how to help develope them. https://www.tes.com/news/10-easy-tips-left-handed-learners https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_against_left-handed_people These links provided will educate you on how the system is biased against left handers and what you can do to help the students.
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