By Mike Huckabee
December 1, 2021
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I’ve repeatedly warned readers not to fall for the idea that the $1.2 trillion “infrastructure” bill was actually going to buy $1.2 trillion worth of roads, bridges and airport improvements (hence our habitual use of quotation marks around “infrastructure.”) That’s partly because only a fraction of the money goes to things that any sane person would consider to be actual infrastructure (Democrats only win arguments by redefining words, in this case turning “government giveaway programs” into “human infrastructure.”) But it’s also because Democrats, in thrall to environmentalist donors, have created so many laws that make it darn near impossible to build a new road, highway, dam or any other major construction project.
We went through the same thing under Obama. Remember the promise that spending nearly a trillion tax dollars would create thousands of “shovel-ready jobs?” Then we discovered that it took a 10-year environmental impact study just to get permits to buy a shovel. Even Obama himself admitted that he found out there were no “shovel-ready jobs.”
Well, one of the hallmarks of modern liberals is that they never learn from prior mistakes. So now we have a freshly-signed $1.2 trillion “infrastructure” bill, and the New York Times, which pushed hard for passage, has suddenly realized that it probably won’t actually build or fix very much infrastructure.
The Times actually printed an analysis by independent journalist Ralph Vartabadian in which he found that the bill “carries enormous risks that the projects will face the same kind of cost, schedule and technical problems that have hobbled ambitious efforts from New York to Seattle, delaying benefits to the public and driving up the price tag that taxpayers ultimately will bear.”
It would have been nice if the Times had looked that closely at the bill before it was passed with their support and we taxpayers got stuck with the tab. But even if it never results in a new road or bridge, it will accomplish its actual goals of (A.) giving Biden a legislative “win,” (B.) expanding government size and control, and (C.) showering money on Democrat donors and voting blocs.
In short, the Times will never learn because keeping their readers willfully ignorant until it’s too late advances the left’s political agenda. But the rest of us can learn from this never to pay attention to the New York Times.
Permalink: https://www.mikehuckabee.com/2021/12/infrastructure
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