Kerby Anderson

If you’ve watched congressional politics, you know the game. Pull together all sorts of funding projects that would never pass on their own, and then stick them in a bill with a title like “health care reform” or “COVID Relief.” This time the bill is referred to as an “infrastructure bill.

We obviously need to fix our roads and bridges. We need to upgrade our ports and airports. We even need to modernize our water and sewer systems. But should we spend another $2 trillion doing this? Can’t we do it for less?

Senator Shelley Moore Capito thinks we can do it for much less. Stephen Moore also thinks so and puts the figure close to $600 billion. But then says we don’t even need new spending to achieve that. The money easily can come from the unspent slush fund dollars inside the American Recovery Act passed back in March. Stephen Moore locates four pots of money that would provide the necessary funds for infrastructure improvement.

Step one is to take $175 billion in blue-state money. Most states have budget surpluses, not deficits, thanks to the stock market rally and a quicker than expected recovery from the pandemic and lockdown.

Step two is to reassign the $129 billion in federal education dollars allocated for schools and teacher unions from 2022-2028. The pandemic is effectively over, and schools are likely to start again in a few months.

Step three is to stop paying an additional $300 a week in unemployment benefits. This is especially important since so many businesses are looking for employees, and we shouldn’t be paying people not to work.

Step four is to declare a war on waste. There are tens of billions of dollars of outrageous spending.

We can fix the nation’s infrastructure without spending $2 trillion.