Corporate media may be billing it as “bipartisan,” but Democrats’ $1 trillion infrastructure plan is designed to check things off of their far-left political agenda.
As it stands now, the infrastructure bill only dedicates approximately $110 billion to address actual “physical infrastructure” such as roads and bridges. Of this $110 billion, $1 billion would be dedicated to fixing what Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said is “racism physically built into” the nation’s highway system by prioritizing projects in historically black neighborhoods.
“This investment will repair and rebuild our roads and bridges with a focus on climate change mitigation, resilience, equity, and safety for all users, including cyclists and pedestrians,” the White House fact sheet states.
Other racial “equity” initiatives are sustained through the $65 billion meant to expand broadband internet access. Democrats have framed this as a necessary inclusion following months of their own government-mandated lockdowns that forced Americans in isolation to move their work, schooling, and communication online.
While airports will get $25 billion dollars if passed, $66 billion dollars are dedicated to various railway projects such as Amtrak. The legislation also includes provisions to give Amtrak a free pass from taxpayer accountability and gives traction to radical leftists such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who want to functionally replace air travel with rail travel as a means to implement Green New Deal initiatives. Another portion of the bill grants $7.5 billion for electric vehicle stations.
The rest of the money is spread out between projects that favor urban areas, often controlled by Democrat politicians, and caters to fulfilling the requests of the White House.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi chose to delay a vote on the $1 trillion bill on Thursday as progressives and swing voters in her party fought over the legislation and the reconciliation spending bill so closely associated with it.
“I’m only envisioning taking it up and winning it,” she said after repeatedly telling reporters earlier in the day and week that there would be a vote.
The White House appeared to support Pelosi’s decision and reiterated that “we will need some additional time to finish the work, starting tomorrow morning first thing.”
Pelosi previously pledged she would not take up the infrastructure bill in the House “until the Senate passes the bipartisan bill and a reconciliation bill.”
“If there is no bipartisan bill, then we’ll just go when the Senate passes a reconciliation bill,” she said in June. “There ain’t gonna be no bipartisan bill, unless we have a reconciliation bill. As I said, there won’t be an infrastructure bill, unless we have a reconciliation bill. Plain and simple. In fact, I use the word ain’t. There ain’t going to be an infrastructure bill, unless we have the reconciliation bill passed by the United States Senate.”
Democrat swing voters in the Senate such as West Virginia’s Joe Manchin are still dancing around whether they will pass the reconciliation bill. Manchin reportedly dished out copies of a proposal that he presented to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer about the congressional budget resolution to his Democrat colleagues in the Senate this week “to underscore that he has outlined his red lines on President Joe Biden’s jobs and families plan” and defend his decision to stifle the White House’s spending agenda. The first requirement states that the bill cannot exceed his topline spending ceiling of $1.5 trillion and requests that debate on the reconciliation package begin no later than Oct. 1.
