And so Democratic squabbling and backtracking begin:
"Biden’s next package could be far pricier than the coronavirus bill. Although plans remain fluid, it’s expected to center on a major infrastructure investment, while also tackling other priorities such as clean energy, domestic manufacturing, and child and elder care….
"Moderate-leaning Democrats could balk at spending trillions more on issues that range far afield from emergency economic relief, and fights are already brewing over how far to go in raising taxes to pay for what comes next."
The price tag on infrastructure alone is about $3 trillion, while the admittedly self-interested American Society of Civil Engineers estimates a necessary expenditure of $4 trillion. Either expense is no luxury. Our national foundations are creaking and crumbling and beginning to work like an Italian phone company. For our own security and to be internationally competitive, this can't go on.
Much of the cost is slated to be covered by the wealthy and corporations, with Bernie Sanders still chattering about "the billionaire class" picking up the tab. But someone in government needs to be honest with the American public: Taxing the superaffluent will get us only so far; the tax pain must trickle down and throughout, for decades to come.
How to pass such a package? There's talk of another go at the reconciliation process, but of course some Democrats are skittish. Damn, that might upset Republicans. Says Deleware's Sen. Tom Carper, "I'm still trying to get my head wrapped around how we use reconciliation without undermining our success working across the aisle." To the best of my knowledge, he's serious.
Republicans had years to do something and they did nothing. Plus Dems will get no bipartisan satisfaction from them, no matter how they proceed. And voters don't give a damn about congressional procedure; they just want government to act.
None of my urgings is radical. Arguments to the contrary should be the first to be dismissed. The party in power was elected to reverse America's overall decline, and that's not the infrastructure but the superstructure of what needs to proceed.