At long last, "Infrastructure Week" - a running a joke during the Trump years - has come to pass. It remains to be seen whether Manchinema will act on BBB absent the threat of their infrastructure bill not passing the House. But it always seemed at least a little bit of an empty threat. The BIB is a good bill and should be passed and signed because it's a good bill. It budgets $110B to repair existing roads and bridges, $66B to boost rail, $55B to replace lead drinking water pipe, and $60B to improve the electrical grid and access to broadband internet. It also includes $50B to deal with climate crises.
Sadly, making a bipartisan bill meant reducing or eliminating tax increases on the wealthy. This could make the bill slightly inflationary, but I doubt seriously if we will still be talking about inflation in 6-9 months time. Also, taxing the rich has to happen. At some point, we have to address rampaging inequality and taxation is the clearest path to do so.
Still, this is good news, providing we get a half-way decent BBB bill in the next few weeks.
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