A recent letter questioned the components of the $1.2T infrastructure bill and stated that a large part of the bill wasn’t real infrastructure. First, there isn’t $1.2T in new spending. That number includes ordinary annual spending on infrastructure. Second, in addition to the funding described there’s funding for rail service ($66 billion), climate change protection ($50 billion), public transit ($39 billion), airports ($25 billion), pollution remediation ($21 billion), ports ($17 billion), electric vehicles and charging stations ($15 billion), and traffic safety ($11 billion).
Best estimate is that there’s about $550 billion in new spending. I do agree with the letter writer’s point that the bill contains earmarks for favored politicians. The writer also asked where the money would come from, and I’d suggest it will be borrowed, as usual.
John Wentworth
Loudon