Editorial

If the recently passed $1.9 trillion “stimulus package,” was a Democratic Party slush fund, the so-called “infrastructure bill,” is a $2 trillion Democratic porkfest. The stimulus package was the Federal Reserve printing money – and taxpayers having to pay for it – to give cities and towns, especially poorly run big cities, a bail-out. Some estimates we saw narrowed the actual money going to people as a fraction of what was given to pet projects.

Now we have the infrastructure plan, and it’s less of the same – the less going to the titled reason for the bill, infrastructure. Of course, that doesn’t mean that the Orwellian Pretorian Guard in the halls of Congress and the media aren’t trying to change the meaning of “infrastructure.”

According to New York Senator Ken. Kirsten Gillibrand: Paid leave is infrastructure; child-care is infrastructure; care giving is infrastructure. One has to admire her gall.

But let’s take a look at what is being proposed as broken down by several websites, including the Townhall.com group:

-Less than 6 percent ($115 billion) for roads and bridges;

-43 percent more is spent on mass transit and rail ($165 billion) than for roads and bridges;

-Less than 2 percent ($42 billion) for waterways, locks, dams, ports, and airports;

-Less than 5 percent ($100 billion) for broadband;

-74 percent more is spent on subsidies for electric vehicles ($174 billion) than for broadband.

These are the components concerning what we all consider infrastructure. Meanwhile, the bill is full of non-infrastructure provisions such as: 

-$400 billion for expansion of Medicaid;

-$213 billion for housing and to increase federal control of local housing markets;

-$100 billion of additional funding for schools without requiring them to reopen;

-$50 billion for a new office at the U.S. Department of Commerce;

-$35 billion for climate science, innovation, and R&D;

-$10 billion for a new “Civilian Climate Corps;”

-Overturns right-to-work laws in 27 states.

We all know we need our roads and bridges repaired and that is what the American public is willing to pay to do. But, once again, the Democratic majority – slim though it is – is hellbent on spending millions of dollars we don’t have on more pent projects that have absolutely nothing to do with infrastructure.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said days ago the problems with the bill are semantics. No, not semantics, paying for pet projects on the backs of the US Taxpayer.

And as a sop to the failing unions, the bill would upend right to work laws passed by states. What has that to do with infrastructure? Not much.

The bill has problems at the outset because tax hikes proposed by the White House are unpopular on both sides of the aisle. Can we hope that some sanity will occur and a pared down bill dealing only with infrastructure can be passed? We wouldn’t bet the mortgage.

The Democratic Party is on a spending spree, mostly paying off political patrons. The nation’s deficit, meanwhile, is growing in leaps and bounds to the point it is in territory Greece once occupied. The “full faith and credit” of the United States government will mean very little in a very short time.

Work on infrastructure, but only infrastructure. That’s roads, bridges, tunnels and dams, not a Progressive grab bag of booty and programs.