How Many Trillions to Waste?

President Biden wanted to spend $2.25 trillion we don’t have on projects we don’t need. Republicans countered by saying they weren’t willing to spend more than $568 billion we don’t have on projects we don’t need. President Biden, desiring to show he was willing to compromise, offered to spend $1.7 trillion we don’t have on projects we don’t need.

Now the latest is that Republicans have agreed to spend “close to $1 trillion” we don’t have on projects we don’t need. Whereas Biden hinted that he would agree to raising taxes on corporations and people who earn more than $400,000 a year to pay for part of his plan, a key provision of the Republican proposal is that taxes won’t be raised on anyone to pay for it, thus absolutely ensuring we won’t have the money to pay for their infrastructure projects we don’t need.

It is easy to say that this is just politics, but I can’t help but feeling that everyone inside the Beltway has gone nuts. As I noted earlier this week, Democrats have successfully moved the goal posts so far out that Republicans think that spending nearly $1 trillion in funny money is a fiscally conservative proposal.

If we don’t have revenue, then printing money to fund these bills is generally expected to lead to inflation. After spending several trillion dollars we don’t have for the pandemic, much of which didn’t need to be spent, there are already signs of inflation “running hotter than expected.” Even CNN thinks that “Biden should be worried” about inflation, yet neither Biden nor Republicans seem to care.
How to eliminate sexual weakness due to any vardenafil sale reasons may also use this product and facilitate the tablets throughout the world. learningworksca.org generic cialis tabs Acai Norge is also extremely high in antioxidants. Too much nightfall order viagra on line can invite the problem of lethargy, low libido, weight gain, erectile dysfunction, depression, abdominal obesity etc. If you too brand viagra from canada have the same problem, contact your doctor or pharmacist.
The other problem is that government spending on infrastructure is inevitably followed by more government spending on infrastructure. Without the discipline that comes with limiting spending to actual revenues, every project built in one part of the country leads to demands for similar projects from the rest of the country, no matter how stupid the first project turns out to be.

Portland built a light-rail line not because it made economic sense but because it had federal dollars that had to be spent on something or it would lose them. This example was quickly followed by Buffalo, Sacramento, and San Jose. Light rail costs exploded from around $20 million a mile for the first ones to well over $200 million a mile today, yet at least 25 different urban areas either have, are building, or planning to build light rail today. The same thing would have happened if California had been able to finish its high-speed rail: megacities around the country like Duluth and Cheyenne and Christiansburg would all demand their own high-speed rail lines.

This may be the best reason why transportation infrastructure should be paid for out of user fees: doing so keeps spending under control and helps ensure that projects built are truly worthwhile. Unfortunately, those who expect to profit from infrastructure spending have managed to generate an infrastructure crisis when no such crisis really exists.

Bookmark the permalink.

About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

6 Responses to How Many Trillions to Waste?

  1. LazyReader says:

    The braindead retard doesn’ wanna do anything. He does what he’s told or suggested. ‘
    Watch the Law/Order episode
    A law clerk enamored with A.D.A. Cutter may have an undue influence over the judge she works for in one of Cutter’s trials, initially assumed he was being blackmailed, in reality he has alzheimrs and his
    mind is going, and his law clerk who wants to keep him in his job in order to protect her own, so she orchestrates all his case work and makes decisions.

  2. LazyReader says:

    You don’t have to tear down he highway, Bury them. And build over top

  3. JOHN1000 says:

    Why not follow the old tried and true government union infrastructure job plan:

    Dig a hole and then fill it in. Now they want to dig a million holes and then fill them in.

    These would be just as worthwhile make work projects without any worries about how to pay for the future maintenance and costs of running light rail.

  4. metrosucks says:

    https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/nation/2021/04/14/zoning-biden-infrastructure-bill-would-curb-single-family-housing/7097434002/

    Get rid of highways, move the urban monkeys into the suburbs. The area I live in, in the Seattle suburbs, has seen a recent explosion in violent crime due to more diversity moving in. Moronic whites wringing their hands and blubbering about what could be the cause of the crime.

Leave a Reply