Last Monday, I predicted that if Glenn Youngkin won the Virginia governorship, Republicans in Congress would demand more cuts from the infrastructure bill. Nancy Pelosi apparently read my post, as she had the House hastily vote on the infrastructure bill just a few days after Youngkin’s victory. By passing the Senate bill unamended, Pelosi gave fiscal conservatives no opportunities to try to change the bill in conference. Before the Virginia election, Pelosi had been delaying a vote in order to pressure centrists to support the $3.5 trillion non-infrastructure bill, which will now be much harder to pass.
Passage of the infrastructure bill means tens of billions of dollars will be spent on needless and wasteful projects like this Seattle-area light-rail project. Photo by SounderBruce.
As passed, the infrastructure bill is really two bills: first, a reauthorization of federal spending on highways and transit; and second entirely new spending on highways, transit, Amtrak, electric vehicles, airports, ports, clean water, clean energy, and broadband. This entirely new spending is almost entirely unnecessary as the infrastructure crisis was mostly made up in order to get Congress do what it always does, which is throw money at problems.
What disappoints me the most is that roughly half the transportation spending is dedicated to Amtrak and transit, transportation systems that carry less than 1 percent of passenger travel and no freight. While the highways that carry 87 percent of passenger travel and 40 percent of freight get the other half, a lot of the highway money is dedicated to reducing road capacities, not increasing or even maintaining them.
The outcome would have been quite different if Trump had managed to hold onto the White House and Republicans held both houses of Congress. The federal highway program would have been reauthorized but transit spending probably would have been reduced, especially for new transit infrastructure. The new spending probably wouldn’t have happened at all.
What are the chances that we will be able to reverse this in the future? The infrastructure bill will expire in 2026, and since Congress never makes an important decision in an election year, the next bill will probably be taken up in 2027.
Right now, it looks like Republicans, who tend to be more fiscally conservative than Democrats — they successfully reduced the money that was supposed to go to Amtrak and transit by nearly $60 billion — will win the White House and maybe take over both houses of Congress in 2024. But they will have to hold on to both houses in the 2026 election, or the pork-loving Democrats will have an outsized say in the next bill.
History shows, however, that when a political party takes the White House and Congress in one election, they are likely to lose control of at least one house of Congress in the next. The problem is that both parties consist of an extreme wing (left for Democrats, right for Republicans) and a centrist wing. When a party wins both the White House and Congress, the extremists try to impose their policies, which causes the centrists in the party to defect.
Unless the Republicans who take over in 2025 learn this lesson — and few seem to have learned it in the last 40 or so years — I’m not optimistic that we’ll get a better transportation bill in 2027 than we got this year. Sad to say, we are likely to see Congress continue wasting money on obsolete forms of transportation for many more years.
I agree with the Antiplanner that this new transportation bill being a waste of money. However, to run the government competently the Republicans must elect competent people who will not try to undermine the constitution as Trump did. He claimed without evidence that the last election was corrupt. Nothing he claimed has held up in court with actual evidence. It is frightening that a majority of Republicans actually agree with him! Don’t forget that the Antiplanner reasonably called Trump “crazy.” The idea of someone who incited a crowd to storm the capital and overturn a fair election is frightening to our democracy. Anyone who disagrees with this should explain what evidence they have for why the election was fraudulent and why they haven’t used this evidence in court to challenge the election.
Also don’t forget that whereas the Democrats are the tax and spend party, the Republicans are the borrow and spend party, consistently cutting taxes and increasing the federal deficit. This policy will eventually bankrupt the country with far too much of our tax revenues going to pay interest on the debt. Anyone who disagrees with this needs to show when cutting taxes resulted in the deficit decreasing.
If the Republicans want to run the country competently then they must start electing people who will abide by democracy and stop borrowing and spending. If they want to cut taxes then they need to cut spending.
It is frightening that a majority of Republicans actually agree with him!
Exactly. Nothing at all like that happened in the ’16 election:
“The idea of someone who incited a crowd to storm the capital and overturn a fair election is frightening to our democracy.”
I’m not a trump supporter, but this lie needs to stop. There was no incitement. I dare you to quote inciting words. You can’t. Because there were none.
”
The idea of someone who incited a crowd to storm the capital and overturn a fair election is frightening to our democracy.
” ~paul
Please seek psychiatric care for your mental disorder.
”
What are the chances that we will be able to reverse this in the future? The infrastructure bill will expire in 2026, and since Congress never makes an important decision in an election year, the next bill will probably be taken up in 2027.
” ~antiplanner
It’ll be interesting to see how things change, if at all, by then.
To Ted and prk166:
I note that neither of you offer any evidence that the election was stolen. I presume that therefore you agree that the election was fair and Trump is wrong to keep claiming it was stolen. This makes him unfit to be president again, as are those Republicans who support the lie that it was.
As far as Trump inciting the crowd, it certainly sounded like it as he used so many violent words in his immediately before the insurrection at the capitol. See: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/10/us/trump-speech-riot.html
Weird that no one has been charged with the federal crime of insurrection, 18 U.S. Code § 2383. If no one is charged with insurrection, does that mean there wasn’t an insurrection?
Now do the previous losing presidential candidate:
Does that make her unfit to run for president again, and those Democrats who would support the lie that it was?
“I note that neither of you offer any evidence that the election was stolen.”
Right. Because I was addressing your bogus claim that trump “incited a riot to storm the capital.”
That is a blatant lie.
Quote the exact “violent words” (as if words could ever equal violence) in context (instead of being lazy and linking to the Democratic Party mouthpiece—NYT) or STFU.
Lets suppose that a black lives matter activist in a speech before a march stirred up the crowd for an hour with a fiery word, among many other statements saying “We fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore” (as Trump did.) Then suppose the crowd then stormed a public building and broke in violently. I would say that that is inciting a crowd and the person who incited that crowd should be held accountable the for incitement. This is what Trump did. Then Trump apparently watched the result on TV and seemed quite pleased at the result, with no apparent effort to stop the break in and violence until pressured to do so by aids. Had a black lives matter activist behaved this way, I would say he should be prosecuted. The same goes for Trump.
So, if a black lives matter activist had given the same speech resulting in the same break in, do you still hold that he would not be responsible for incitement? Are you saying you have to “fight like hell” in this context is not incitement?
No, “fight like hell” is metaphorical, ordinary political rhetoric. Seriously.
https://youtu.be/XG5BcU1ZGiA
Here is the real context these liars always omit: “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
Please GTFO.
“He claimed without evidence that the last election was corrupt. ”
WTF? really? If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, well you know the rest. And if the election was on the up and up, why did Big Tech censor any discussion.
Then there is this: https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/
The election of 2020 stunk to hell.
“He [Trump] claimed without evidence that the last election was corrupt.”
Gee, where have we heard that before?
Oh right, Hillary can’t let go of 2016.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-trump-is-an-illegitimate-president/2019/09/26/29195d5a-e099-11e9-b199-f638bf2c340f_story.html
” Don’t forget that the Antiplanner reasonably called Trump ‘crazy.’”
Like all mortals, the Antiplanner is not infallable.
“As passed, the infrastructure bill is really two bills: first, a reauthorization of federal spending on highways and transit; and second entirely new spending on highways, transit, Amtrak, electric vehicles, airports, ports, clean water, clean energy, and broadband.”
Meanwhile the WSJ reports …
The just-passed $1 trillion infrastructure bill includes $55 billion for water-related infrastructure. Less than half that amount is specifically for wastewater, including grants and low-interest loans to cities and states to fix their systems. It’s a lot of money, but a drop in the bucket compared with what both the ASCE and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency say is needed.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/robots-vs-fatbergs-high-tech-approaches-to-americas-sewer-problem-11636779629?st=5crlrpw0sk48kc7&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink