What does ‘infrastructure’ actually mean? The Biden administration pushes a $2.3 trillion infrastructure bill that goes well beyond roads, bridges, ports, and airports, to include broadband access, high-paying union jobs, better pay for home health workers and much more. Is infrastructure now whatever we want to spend money on?
Scott Ott, Stephen Green and Bill Whittle create 20 new episodes of Right Angle each month, thanks to our Members. Join us now.
Video below hosted at Rumble.
42 replies on “Biden’s $2.3 Trillion Question: Is ‘Infrastructure’ Now ‘Whatever We Want to Spend Money On’?”
Bill’s definition of infrastructure is spot-on. As a 40-plus year professional in the building construction-maintenance industry, I had a little experience on the subject. Unfortunately, we could probably spend 2 or 3 trillion dollars on REAL infrastructure and hardly make a serious dent. The upkeep and replacement of our original infrastructure in most municipalities and states was never properly budgeted for, or if it was, that money was scavenged for other pet projects or other more pressing needs. I was intimately involved in the actual study of just how far behind the County of Los Angeles was in this respect, and it was shocking to say the least. Especially the reaction to the reality, which was, “Well that’s good to know, and we will take it into consideration over the next 20 years or so”. While it fails completely, causing an endless stream of emergencies?
Interstate and other federal highways, the backbone of the power grid, canals and federally managed waterways, railroads, and federally managed waste systems would be a good start. But all the BS in this bill is just phenomenal waste.
Oh, and Scott’s wrap-up was spot on. I’ve seen it firsthand during the Obama “Stimulus”.
Roughly 75% of our Federal Spending exceeds the authorizations granted to Congress under Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution (which I would urge you all to STUDY and ponder).
Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 amounts to an introductory clause and highlights the two broad categories that the Congress may spend our money on — namely “General Welfare” and “Common Defence” (sic). The Section then goes down, clause by clause, highlighting more precise and enumerated powers as to what Congress may appropriate for:
Then there is a final clause, Clause 17 — know as the Elastic Clause — grants Congress the power to pass all laws NECESSARY and PROPER for carrying out the enumerated list of powers. [EMPHASIS ADDED].This clause allows Congress flexibility to spend on items that are logically and reasonably associated with Clauses 2 through 16.
For example, our notions of “Infrastructure” as it relates to Federal budgets stems from Clause 7 which grants Congress power “To establish Post Offices and post Roads;” At that time in our history, Postal Service was the primary means of communication, and the speed of correspondence in the Colonies had served to aid our revolt against the British by allowing us to rapidly organize. So, the Framers found the establishment of a Federal Communications infrastructure critical to the success of the Republic by provisioning for Post Offices and roads to carry forth communications.
Nothing is said of inland waterways, canals, railroads, interstate highways, etc. The clause does not even provide for the construction of BRIDGES. So, without Clause 17, Congress could not even have built bridges for the Post Roads (if we are to interpret Amendment X strictly). And, by logic and common sense, Clause 7 — with the aid of Clause 17 — has extended to canals, railroads, airports, radio, and so forth. Indeed, our Interstate Highway network is a worthwhile conglomeration of authorities granted under Clauses 7, 15, 17, and 17. This network provides for communications nationwide, and the rapid mobilization of our National Defense.
So, IF there exists ANYTHING in this Infrastructure bill that does not logically fit the context of Clause 7 as Necessary and Proper, then it is an unconstitutional usurpation of powers not delegated to the Federal Government by the States or the People. Such usurpations amount to Sedition — punishable by up to 20 years in prison, according to Federal Law.
I noticed that you guys didn’t mention the other fabricated infrastructure…the new green deal. How much of our money will be pissed away on so called sustainable energy? And who will be getting richer on the taxpayer dollar? Oh yeah Ketchup Kerry and Algorarithm..
Not to mention the cost of an expanded bureaucracy to administer the wasteful spending. High paying jobs that Joe is talking about?.
Another thing…we the consumers are taxed monthly on our infrastructure expenditures…electric, natural gas, phone, internet, gas for your vehicle (Actually taxed twice on that one. Excise tax then sales tax on top of that) et al. Those taxes are supposed to support the infrastructure. Where the hell are they going?
Ever hear of a “Money Pit”? Yeah that is exactly where these piles of money will end up, and there will be no “transparency” about where or whom actual gets at least half of it…. If previous leftist budget spending are any indication.
Every time i hear democrats talk about “infrastructure building” it ends up the only infrastructure they are interested in building is that of their voter base.
It seems to me that words can mean whatever the left wants them to mean,
Two comments:
The biggest issue I find is that with government offerings come government rules. I’m sure they will make healthcare providers extremely difficult to gain access to in some way. And I’m certain they’d do the same with internet. And I further fear the control they would feel compelled to exert over both. Imagine a healthcare worker continually reporting back to their masters on anything the found not satisfactory within your home setting. Those who have dealt with CPS can tell you that the iron fist is not a good thing. Or how about monitoring and controlling what we can put on the internet and when and where we can access? I could go on but you get the point.
If you are going to call it infrastructure, it has to be available to all, and the access will eventually be limited by the very demand of the users. I could go on about the issues that would entail.
First off, I’d be extremely suspicious of the quality of care provided by a “government” healthcare worker.
Secondly, when government provides the healthcare, does government get to decide who is worthy to receive that healthcare?
Are these worthy projects? Are they public, involve capital over consumption, include sinking funds for operational maintenance going forward, how long to implement them properly and successfully (without corruption), etc.? All good questions, but right now the more important question is how do we get our supposedly prudent conservative and Republican representatives in the government (at any level) to speak out long and loudly enough to get those answers that involve our money (and that of our posterity).
If BIll’s 7% figure is at all accurate concerning this proposed bill (and this happens to be the first I have heard of that so far) then that should provide plenty of opportunities for countering dialog that would still reach the public, even with the bias of the MSM, et al. And if they want to compare Biden’s proposals as some distorted image of him thinking that he is a modern day version of FDR, so much the better to further ridicule and dismember such atrocious and poorly defined or envisioned initiatives.
If any of these things were good investments, Bezos and Zuck and Gates would be investing in them.
The problem we have is twofold: (1) a couple of generations of poorly executed public education system, and (2) major media turning into Pravda propaganda media for the political left in this country. If we do not turn both of those around, then we are sunk as a nation. I could also had we need to repeal both the 16th and 17th amendments to our Constitution, but that’s a discussion for another time. We need to fix the first two right now.
I agree with the relative importance of your 1) and 2) items in the scheme of things.
And I suspect our need for governmental revenue is now so great (CCP and/or pandemics, if nothing else) that keeping, altering, or removing the 16th Amendment is going to be pretty complicated; not at all simple.
But I have an idea for revising the 17th to make it more state level federalistic while keeping some of the “democratic” electorate selection aspects that drove its adoption in the first place. Consider for discussion.
To retain the democratic state wide aspect (and minimize the corruptive influence of state level special interests and good ole boys) the senatorial elections would include selecting 4 or 5 candidates from whatever pool of people chose to run. Then the legislature would select the one person (or sometimes two people?) to actually become senators from that winning group. This would impart more of the federalist state level governmental focus that our current approach distorts or fails to demonstrate much at all.
Or the process could be flipped: the legislature selects 4 or 5 candidates and the state wide electorate votes on the person most appealing to them from among this group. Thus, state level considerations are high on the candidate’s attention since they were initially selected by the legislature, but appealing to the total population also comes into play.
Probably still have some issues with political party influences and relative magnitude of political distributions within the state that still need consideration. But I welcome any discussion of the merits and limits of this idea.
If I had to choose between those two options for modification of the 17th Amendment, I would choose the latter. It might also make the state legislative elections more important to the state voters during the off-Presidential years. I still prefer completely repealing the 17th Amendment, though. Regarding the 16th Amendment, I would accept a modification that would require a balanced budget which would include everything that is now “off-budget”. That is, ever single penny spent by the Federal Government would be counted as part of the budget that must be balanced.
Somehow “commons” and “infrastructure” is getting confused in the discussion.
Well that is how China, the left’s model, refer to their “infrastructure” as the “commons”. So if you want to see how this idea works, research how China’s commons is treated and how poorly it is taken care of…
I agree with Bill about what is public domain and what is private business responsibility, except when it comes to high speed internet. Yes, the companies who supply the service are supposed to provide and maintain those lines. The problem lies with the people in rural areas of the country, who are more spread out and don’t have as many customers to be serviced. The private businesses who would be running communication lines to these areas are looking at a cost benefit sheet and saying, there is no benefit to spending tens of thousands of dollars to run lines to, say, 10 families (just numbers in my head, but you get it). Those areas are left behind in terms of commerce, education, and a basic connection with the rest of the world because high speed internet is the 21st century way we run things. If the government subsidized the installation of those lines, I’d be okay with it. It would put the rural communities onto an equal footing with cities as far as that one basic utility in today’s modern world.
The federal government has been throwing money at that problem since Al Gore invented the internet. And they still haven’t built their “information superhighway” that they promised we’d have before Y2K.
I lived in a rural area. I heard the promises for one project after another–particularly for rural school districts. Never happened.
Cable company finally did it–don’t know if they had an “infrastructure investment” from any governmental entities, but since they tripled the cost of service to customers, I don’t think so.
I have family in other rural areas who are still using dial-up. Star Link will get their area serviced before this infrastructure bill is signed.
It doesn’t matter how much they claim they are doing this. Remember Obama’s 1-trillion-dollar “shovel-ready jobs for roads and bridges” infrastructure bill, which turned out to be nothing but money thrown away on companies like Solyndra? They never even pretended to build any roads or bridges after the bill was signed. This bill, with its “green new deal” priorities, will result in thousands of Solyndras, and more corruption and graft in whatever actual construction happens than the crime lords of Boston’s Big Dig ever dreamed of.
I’m also always skeptical that the government will do what it promises. 🙂 Their track record doesn’t inspire confidence. My only point was that I believe internet service should be treated like part of infrastructure. This bill is definitely full of crazy non-infrastructure crap!
Agreed–I think it should count as infrastructure too, just like phone or power lines. My point was that they’ve been allocating monies to build or improve it since the early 1990s and very little of what exists now was built with those allocations. So why would now be any different? This bill is even more corrupt than HR1. The Democrats are really outdoing themselves, and it’s amazing to watch.
There is actually already a mechanism like this within the federal government working with local businesses. It is the Rural Utility Service which was set up to help electrify more rural areas. What it did was make low interest loans available and private companies set up Rural Electric Coops to erect and maintain the power grids. The engineering portion was largely (not always) outsourced to small firms that serviced several coops in nearby regions.
The federal government did not build/layout/purchase anything. Companies could get there equipment approved and become a certified supplier; then be free to compete for the business of any REC.
Interestingly, many of these REC are now in areas that are not all that rural, but continue to be treated as such.
This model could be used for internet access. In fact in some areas the same poles that carry electric cable also carried phone and could carry cable. Though fiber is better underground. I believe it is already underway using thr REC blueprint. See Conexon (dot) us
However, I suspect that Starlink will be available faster than whatever the Fed Govt could do.
I suspect you’re right. Starlink will be faster than waiting for the government to do anything like this.
DEMs are notorious for redefining words such as infrastructure to implement their globalist-socialist-communist agenda. DEMs have redefined government spending as “investing”.
Why isn’t what Biden and his cabal are doing called taxation without representation? If they ARE asking people if we want this, WHO is it that is being asked—the corporations, union ceo’s? Same thing with the millions and billions of dollars to feed, house, transport and give 1200 debit cards and hotel rooms to hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens. TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION!!!
Unfortunately it is with representation. Slightly over 50% in the case of the House and 50% (though with lots of RINO) in the Senate who were elected to represent people and states. The problem is that we the people keep electing them even though they don’t do what they say.
Any that vote for this monstrosity should be voted out, but most will keep their cushy jobs
To reply to you while recognizing Lynda Shafer’s 8 AM comment: Yes, it is almost like our reps and senators are not parents or grandparents, so they have no concern for the world we are leaving our progeny after we are gone.
Maybe being a grandparent should be one of our new criteria for electing our representatives.
I agree to a point, but Biden has no problem with his lack of concern about the welfare of his grandchildren. Otherwise he would have curtailed Hunter’s nudity and molestation efforts in front of his dead brother’s 14 yr old daughter. Consider Hunter’s affair with Beau’s wife while Beau was dying. We are way past virtue, morals, common decency and caring when it comes to Biden. Just look at the border crisis!
Jen Psaki recently hinted that 0bummer is running the WH. No surprise there.
$1200.00 debit cards.
Our government cares not about the future and has no respect for the dollar – it’s been fiat currency since we abandoned the gold standard. As far as they are concerned money is magic: Want it? Pretend you have it. Spend it without restraint. In their small, evil minds, money is a figment of imagination. Promise everything as a bribe for votes and NEVER be concerned about the consequences. MMT, another great idea brought to you by the Left.
It has been claimed that America under Reagan out-spent the Soviets and thereby drove them into dissolving the USSR. Conservatives have enjoyed high satisfaction making that claim. Isn’t a wealthy China today in a position to wield the same strategy against the U.S., while we conservatives argue about Progressives padding the bill?
That datum is relative only to military spending and is true. The soviets could not afford to keep pace. China is spending not just on their own military, but on invading our culture. They essentially determine what Hollywood makes, NBA and MLB policy, plus influence countless politicians (hi, Joe) and media centers. They are fighting a culture war and readying for a real one. We are fiddling while NY/LA/Chicago/Detroit/Baltimore/Portland/Seattle/Minneapolis (yada yada yada) burn.
One of the infrastructure features: Turbo charged money printing machines …so we can go bankrupt even faster!
Printing money causes inflation which will quickly destroy our economy. That is the globalist-socialist-communist agenda…destroy the USA.
Well, in reality, with national obligations in the $100T plus range, we are already bankrupt (although perhaps not yet broke), but almost no one wants to admit that yet. We will default via inflation or worse, as Diane Kaiser has suggested. Better if we were honest up front, but that is unlikely.
We’ve been PORKED by the politicians!
Scott, I think the primary point of this bill is to miss appropriate the funds.
Who is “miss appropriate”? I think she’s stolen something from me, and I want it back.
He just got his word order misaligned: “the primary point of this bill is to miss the appropriate funds.”
Is miss aligned any better looking than miss appropriate? Or miss inappropriate?
Miss inappropriate might prove to be more fun on a Friday night.
government spending is all about pandering to certain demographics for votes. perhaps it wasn’t always that way but it sure as heck is now. whether on a global scale (climate change, open borders for cheap labor and yet even more votes) or local (taxpayer funds to stroke blm with reparations or feminists with public money for planned parenthood) there is no where but down from here going forward.
It has always been that way. Part of human nature. Part of why the Framers gave us checks and balances. Part of why tax laws must start in the House.
Etc.
I’m also surprised, although I shouldn’t be, that no Republican is asking how things went when Joe was in charge of “Recovery Summer”
I can answer that in one word: nowhere.