Unquestionably, much of the Biden infrastructure plan is an unmitigated disaster. Brad Polumbo has an excellent article up that highlights some of the most egregious spending provisions of the Biden plan.
They include $10 billion to create a “Civilian Climate Corp,” $20 billion to advance “environmental justice,” and $100 billion to make schools greener by doing things like eliminating paper plates.
Most frightening, Palumbo’s list just scratches the surface of wasteful spending contained in the Biden plan, as Polumbo himself points out:
The above list totals hundreds of billions in waste and unrelated partisan spending slipped into the Biden administration’s expensive “infrastructure” plan. But it should be stressed that this list is far from exhaustive; it’s what one reporter was able to find in a few hours of research.
The truth is that while the Biden plan is a disaster, it exists – in part – because of the GOP’s own refusal to deal with the issue of infrastructure when we held the House, Senate, and the White House.
First and foremost, while infrastructure spending can be a total waste of spending and a grab bag of social justice garbage when administered by Democrats, the fact of the matter is that infrastructure is key to protecting and growing the American economy.
— Chris Barron 🇺🇸 (@ChrisRBarron) March 31, 2021
We face a staggering infrastructure shortfall, across almost every sector.
According to the American Society of Civil Engineers 2017 Infrastructure Report Card, our nation’s infrastructure merits a D+ and it is estimated that the U.S. needs to spend $4.5 trillion by 2025 to improve—among other things—our roads, airports, bridges, and dams, or risk catastrophic failure.
President Trump understood that.
He recognized how critical infrastructure was to the economy – not because a pollster or policy wonk told him it was – but because by nature he is a builder.
Unfortunately for President Trump, his desire to make smart and common-sense investments in America’s infrastructure were met with everything from apathy to opposition on the part of the entrenched Republican establishment when the President took office in 2017.
As I wrote in Human Events two years ago,
Unfortunately, the President’s desire to make critical infrastructure investments didn’t meet with much interest from establishment Republicans in the House and Senate—who instead focused on repealing Obamacare and the successful overhaul of the tax code. One source close to the President went as far as to claim that the President was willing to “spend buckets of money” on an infrastructure plan—which obviously proved unpopular with establishment Republicans.
Indeed, the President’s desire to pass a transformational infrastructure package – which would have provided jobs to millions of Americans – didn’t end with the Democratic capture of the House in the 2018 midterms.
In fact, a Wall Street Journal article after the mid-terms made it clear that Trump believed that maybe the Democrats were serious about all their infrastructure talk:
Indeed, some around the President—possibly even the President himself—initially believed that he would find a more willing dance partner on infrastructure with a Democratic-controlled House than a Republican-led one. A Wall Street Journal article, published immediately following the mid-terms, claimed that the President thought the newly appointed Democratic House could deliver the legislative leverage needed for infrastructure reform.
Unfortunately for the American people, it became painfully obvious very quickly after Nancy Pelosi grabbed the Speaker’s gavel in 2019, that the Democratic majority in the House didn’t care about infrastructure – or any other issue – in the slightest.
Imagine if the media expended 1/10th of the energy they have on January 6th on real policy challenges facing the country. https://t.co/BKXxWaNXR8
— Chris Barron 🇺🇸 (@ChrisRBarron) April 1, 2021
They were committed to politically motivated witch hunts and obsessed with attempting to destroy President Trump.
The lesson for America First Republicans is clear: don’t trust the establishment when it comes to setting policy priorities (or anything else for that matter).
If we are fortunate enough to take back the White House in 2024, and secure majorities in the House and Senate, we must prioritize issues like infrastructure – because if we don’t, the left will, and we won’t be happy with the outcome.
President Trump delivered a blistering criticism of Biden’s infrastructure plan this week, saying:
The lobbyists will win, the special interests will win, China will win, the Washington politicians and government bureaucrats will win – but hardworking American families will lose.
Trump is absolutely right, which is why it is absolutely critical to the American worker that future Republican majorities show leadership on infrastructure.
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