What <em>Infrastructure</em> Really Means
On March 31, President Joe Biden unveiled a $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan that he lauded as “a once-in-a-generation investment.” The package recalled the construction of the interstate highway system in the 1950s and the public investments in the space race in the ’60s. However, this program is distinguished from those earlier ones not only by its price tag but in its unprecedented scope. Over the past three months, as Congress has debated Biden’s plan, three key questions have emerged: How should the bill be funded? How much spending should be devoted to new investments versus continuing current spending? And, most fundamentally, what counts as infrastructure in the first place?
No one has objected to including roads or bridges in the package, but what about investing in advanced manufacturing? Mitigating climate change? Home health care? Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell that “less than 6 percent of this massive proposal goes to roads and bridges.” Senator Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia Biden’s original plan as “a partisan proposal that goes far beyond what constitutes … infrastructure.” Senator Rob Portman of Ohio the bill as one full of “broad policy priorities that are a far cry away from what we’ve ever defined as infrastructure” and that
