It looks like "infrastructure week" will be with us this year as Joe Biden rolled out a plan to spend more than 2 trillion dollars on crumbling roads and bridges, broadband expansion, electrical grid security and many other green energy initiatives. Predictably, the GOP criticized the Democrats plan to raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations to pay for it. On the other side, AOC and progressives say the plan is not nearly big enough to address many problems and are calling for up to 5 times the funding Biden's plan allows.
Our local paper featured the usual suspects; both Republicans and Democrats calling the plan a necessary initiative, but carping about the price. Our local congresscritter, Elise Stefanik was not quoted, probably because she will be expected to echo the national GOP's opposition to anything that benefits the citizenry although she also knows the plan will be extremely popular with most of her constituents.
Many prosperous countries around the world run much larger deficits in order to pay for public works. Japan's debt is proportionately many times ours, yet the Japanese continue to be able to borrow at even better rates than we do. The argument our descendants will be forced to pay for our spending spree is outdated. Governments are not like families who are constrained by an inability to control their currency. On a timescale of hundreds of years, today's national debt is insignificant. The sooner we get our heads around that, the sooner we can address our pressing needs.
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