NightFox
Wildling
I don’t operate under the assumption that the GOP’s motives or methods are honest on anything that they do. However in this case the end result was alerting the public to the fact that what the Democrats were attempting to do mask a whole bunch of spending that was completely unrelated to actual infrastructure investment under the guise of “Infrastructure”. The Democrats tried to pull a bait and switch because they knew the idea of physical Infrastructure investment was popular with the citizenry across party lines.Seems to me it’s all just marketing, as a society we no longer debate the contents of what’s inside the box, we only pay attention to the packaging and the label.The word, "infrastructure" has had a common, generally understood meaning for generations. New technology has made it reasonable to include "Wideband internet" in the definition of "infrastructure," and nobody is seriously refuting that addition. All the politicians in Washington agree, regardless of party, that massive INFRASTRUCTURE spending can be justified at this time (which is arguable, but agreed).
Today's Leftists in Washington have stated, falsely, that things such as education, childcare, healthcare, and family leave, are "infrastructure." And yet we know that this is false.
So rather than put those initiatives into discrete legislative/spending proposals and debating them on their merits, the Democrats demand that they be called, "infrastructure," and continue to debate meaningless semantics, rather than the merits of their programs. Then, presumably, they go back to their low-information constituents back home and tell them that Republicans oppose "infrastructure" spending - again, a LIE.
If these programs are so good and beneficial, why do they have to lie about what they are? Why do they refuse to debate them on their merits?
Obviously much what the Democrats originally proposed as “infrastructure” does not fit the economic definition, however that didn’t really matter to most people since it’s relatively easy for the partisan apparatchiks to redefine it since most have no idea what the actual definition is and more importantly the economic role that it is intended to play.
It was only after the GOP (rightly in this case) loudly objected to what was “inside the box” that the Democrats were forced to back down and restructure their proposals into what is a now a two track legislative proposal. Unfortunately many Democrats are now tying an actual INFRASTRUCTURE proposal (the bi-partisan Infrastructure bill) with a completely NON-INFRASTRUCTURE bill ( aka “The American Families Act”) in such a way as to make it far more difficult (and enormously more expensive) to achieve the goal of getting badly needed and economically productive INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT.
Unfortunately the duopoly has become very adapt at confusing the citizenry will grandiose sounding proposals that mask underlying political agendas and obfuscating all the potential negative consequences of legislation.
Let's not gloss over the GOP only objected after Biden publicly spilled the beans. People shouldn't be surprised when the GOP helps dems pass the bill based on a promise that won't be keep resulting in a big win for the dems in getting both bills passed.
I’ll give the GOP credit where credit is due in this case, along with the Democrat Moderates in the Senate that refused to go along with the original proposal along strict party lines under reconciliation.
I can’t say how this will turn out and if in the end that we’ll actually get the infrastructure investment that the country BADLY needs, however at least now there is a slim chance that we may get *some*.