Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders lost the Democratic presidential nomination, but you wouldn’t know from President Biden’s first two months in office. First came $ 1.9 trillion in social spending under the guise of Covid-19, and now there is $ 2.3 trillion more in climate and political spending disguised as “infrastructure”.
Most Americans view infrastructure as roads, highways, bridges, and other traditional public works. That’s why there are good polls and each president has supported more of them.
However, that makes up only $ 115 billion of Mr Biden’s proposal. There is another $ 25 billion for airports and $ 17 billion for ports and waterways that also serve a public purpose. The remainder of the $ 620 billion allocated for “transportation” is green energy subsidies and unions for the jobs its climate regulation will kill. This really is a plan to rebuild the government bigger than ever.
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The amount of spending is something to see. There’s $ 85 billion for local transit plus $ 80 billion for Amtrak, on top of the $ 70 billion Congress allocated for local transit in three Covid spending bills. The money is essentially a bailout for unions whose generous pay and benefits have raised funds for repairs to subways and rails.
Mr Biden also suggests building a “broadband infrastructure in unserved and underserved areas” by subsidizing government and non-profit networks. Trump’s Federal Communications Commission, however, unleashed private broadband investment by exempting providers from Obama’s net neutrality rules, streamlining regulations, and restricting how many cities they could blackmail to install 5G sites. In 2019, the providers built over 46,000 cell phone sites, compared to just 708 in 2016.
