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jeff's avatar

I have a guess how the money will get spent because we've done this before.

Everyone will clap themselves on the back, impressed with the top-line number and the vague goodness of "infrastructure". Everyone from lefty socialists to right leaning self identified libertarians will be pleased because if we have one remaining thing we can all agree on, it's infrastructure spending is good. Economists left and right alike will cheer; this spending will stimulate the economy, a little more gas on the fire.

And then we'll hand the state DOTs their checks. And they will go and widen every pointless freeway to nowhere, inducing more driving and more sprawl. They will build new, wider, bridges next to the old bridges. They will spend all of the money on this, and when they're finished, they'll complain they just didn't get enough to fix our "crumbling infrastructure", only enough to expand it. They may even call some of the expansion repair, and they'll definitely call it all "green", somehow.

And we will be poorer for it all, as we already have a half dozen times the infrastructure per person of other wealthy counties. And global warming will continue, and California will burn as they pave new pathways into the burn areas for single family homes. And the cycle of life will continue and in 8 years it will come time to repair our crumbling infrastructure and we'll do it again.

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Charles Ryder's avatar

Has anyone been counting Senate votes? I realize it's early yet, but I'm maximally skeptical there are ten Republican votes in the Senate. Seemingly knowledgeable people on Twitter are suggesting only the reconciliation bill will get to Biden's desk. I'm wondering if, in the event that's how this all ends up shaking out, they'll throw some of the contents of the bipartisan bill into the reconciliation bill.

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