DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus Biden’s infrastructure plan faces controversy over price tag and design

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/03/31/deficit-cost-infrastructure-biden/

When the White House released what it hailed as its historic infrastructure plan Wednesday, it said corporate tax changes would “more than pay for the mostly one-time investments in the American Jobs Plan.”
But there’s a catch: The $2.3 trillion in spending would take place over the next eight years. It would take until 2036 — 15 years — for President Biden’s proposed corporate tax hikes to generate that much revenue.



Begin arguments......After all the trump infrastructure plan of building a wall and having Mexico pay for it went well right?

Argument #1, Biden's too smart to come up with this plan without a way to pay for it.

Did I say smart? oops. I meant,

He couldn't remember the name of the "Pentagon" building.
So how can anyone blame him, it's obviously some larger group of political beaurocrats, (at best), that are running things.

He's not even smart enough, .. oh my gosh, to differentiate between two reporters in a press conference, and answer one press question without cliff notes or a teleprompter.

We never expected anything to be paid for anyways, and this, possilbly being paid in some 15 years, or 10 years too late, is actually better news than most times.

Sit down son. Who’s next?

The investment needs to be made.
Someone has to pay for it.
If you don't pay for it and do it - it will cost more in the long run.
The rest is posturing.

This is simply a return to business-as-usual. Very real spending that's "paid for" (but not really). I (and I would assume/hope) everyone else cringes when they hear about a spending bill (as good/helpful as it may or may not be) relying on revenue generation that hasn't gone through yet.

This isn't a Repub/Dem thing I'm talking about here. It's a overall state-of-US-politics thing.

I think it will take a while for everything to go through the wash.

I don't think anybody is against a infrastructure plan. The what's and how's are going to be the sticking points.

I really think both sides need to be willing to find the middle. If so, it gets done. If not, it will sit on the floor of the Senate. That has been the problem with the last few plans proposed. Each side was unwilling to move very much.

Just find the darn things you can agree on and get those passed and hammer out some of the others as we move along. We are stuck in a all or nothing mentality, and lets face it, that isn't going to happen.

At some point you have to make trade off's...you know, I'll give you this if you give me that. Just a larger version of trading baseball cards when we were kids.

I like your points Peen. I’m pretty sure there are a lot of senators willing to bend. It’s the few hardliners gumming up the whole mess. And they aren’t liberal senator’s doing it. This time the wealthy need to cover most of the bill since they got the biggest break in the trump tax cut overall and the middle class covered the bill for 25 years. Time for a change.

Some of what you said makes me think you don't, but hey, it's a start. I think all parties do it, so liberals are included as well.

Maybe we can get this done by trimming some of the marginal things...or maybe i should say less pressing things and in return, the cooperate rate goes up to 25% rather than 28%? And that is just an example. I am not saying that is what it has to be or should be.

I am just saying that if both sides go in knowing they aren't going to get everything they want and will have to take some things they don't want, it can be worked out. The proposed bill is a starting point....or should be.

That is the way it worked for decades, but not so much in the last 15 years or so.

Let me ask you this peen. When was the last time republicans negotiated with Democrats on any bill? I can tell you right now it wasn’t when the GOP had control of congress and the senate. So why now, all of a sudden when the dems hold control it’s the responsible thing to do? Lol. I get it. It needs to change but the few right wing hardliners won’t negotiate unless they get everything they want.

I already said it is both sides and has been going on for 15 years or more. I am not sure how else I can put it that it is both sides.

Even going back to President Reagan it happened some, but he had such commanding popular support opposing all of his positions wasn't all that smart...plus, he had democratic senators like Biden and Kennedy and republican senators like Howard Baker who knew the value in compromise. All or nothing leaves everybody with nothing, or at the least half with chapped butts, less likely to compromise in the future. Going back to my comparing trading baseball cards when we were kids. If later on you felt you got ripped, you probably didn't trade with that kid anymore. Everybody needs to feel that by making compromise, they walked away with a fair deal.

I have been saying this all along. This isn't something I just jumped on.

I lean a little more to the left than you think.

Socially, I am pretty conservative. Fiscally, more left than you think. I like to see us spend money to make our great nation better. It's money well spent in most cases.

I think you're both right. Peen is right in that we need to bring compromise back into politics in order to get things done for all Americans.

You are right that none of them seem to be concerned about trying to compromise on anything when they are in power.

'Grim Reaper' Mitch McConnell Admits There Are 395 House Bills Sitting in the Senate: 'We're Not Going to Pass Those'

https://www.newsweek.com/mitch-mcconnell-grim-reaper-395-house-bills-senate-wont-pass-1487401

Not only weren't the Republicans interested in trying to compromise, they left these bills collecting dust refusing to even bring them to the floor of the senate for discussion.

I don't disagree except you are wrong if you don't think it works the other way.

So, what do we have here?

I think the leaders of all respective parties in the legislature (Pelosi, Schumer, McConnell and McCarthy) have all demonstrated an all-or-nothing, shrewd approach...with McConnell being the standout as worst offender. The Trump and QAnon base of Republicans (Cruz, MTG, etc.) have taken their unwillingness to compromise to almost militant levels.

I think why he infuriates me so much is that he places procedural loopholes over democracy so much, which is clearly not the Constitutional intent of the legislature. It's horrid.

Then he pulls off this garbage and whines that the Democrats are looking to remove the filibuster. Either play the game the way it's meant to be played and cry about the filibuster, or be shrewd and don't cry when the other side is shrewd back. That's not in his sociopathic mental capacity though.

We have a mess. We have a situation where we all end up paying for political gridlock.

I certainly won't say it's not something that both parties are a part of. It's just that McConnell was the most outwardly blatant offender.

He publicly stated his mission was to make Obama a one term president and took great pride in being an obstructionist. That was rewarded with him being re-elected.

I have no ideas what we do to correct this. It would be nice to have some third and fourth choice on election day. Candidates that actually stood a chance of winning elections.

But you know "corporations are people too" and Super Pacs are perfectly legal. So for a third and fourth party to actually come forth to compete with the huge money machines which are the Republican and Democratic parties at this moment is a pipe dream.

And democrats were drawing up impeachment papers before President Trump took office.


Forget it, you guys carry on.

Removing the filibuster seems like a popular idea but is it really? I mean I think most Americans agree we need an infrastructure bill and we need to expand things like healthcare. They may not be bipartisan issues in the house and senate but they are among Americans.

The problem becomes what happens when you remove the filibuster? You open the door for the opposing party to do the exact same thing the minute they gain control of the senate and undo everything you accomplished.

I compare it to what we've seen with executive orders. One president signs them and the very next president undoes them.

It sounds great in theory but as a practical matter I don't see it accomplishing much in the long run.

No, no they weren't. It's a great line of rhetoric that's in no way rooted in facts.

The least you could do is admit that Mitch took great pride in what he was doing and said so himself. I'm not claiming that both parties don't do it.

And Republicans returned the favor for Biden.

I didn't mean to go down the rabbit hole. I don't want to remove it either. I agree with Biden that it should be painful, but I don't want to remove it.

I was just making the point that he acted as a rather extreme rule-bending obstructionist, and is now crying foul that the other side is responding by potentially removing an obstructionist technique.

He's essentially played with fire and is now complaining about the idea of being burned.

I don't disagree with you. He's the first senator that I can remember being openly and publicly proud of being an obstructionist. That claimed is goal was to make someone a one term president. There may have been those before him that I don't recall.

That's why I used him as the prime example. It's not as if there haven't been politicians on both sides of the aisle who haven't done so by there actions. It's that I don't recall them boasting about it and making it sound like their mission statement.

I know it chaffed someone's ass but when someone like Mitch says things that they're not supposed to be saying out loud, it leaves zero doubt.

His number of $2.3 trillion....

and his timeframe of the next 8 years...

are both in line with what the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) say should be spent just to get our infrastructure up to a grade of "B". I think their's is $2.6 trillion over 10 years so.. close enough.

I haven't read into it, will have to see what kinds of projects are targeted, how much goes to meaningless pet projects to keep some in congress and the senate happy, etc. I have no doubt that a fair amount of it will be "wasted" on bridge to nowhere type projects.... but that's not Biden, that's just government.

The real problem is that our infrastructure doesn't need a "mostly one-time investment".. it needs an on-going maintenance budget. We are great at building new things, we always find money to build new things.. if an area starts to grow, we gladly build them a lovely 4 lane divided road to get to their new subdivisions.. those look great, help build the tax base, encourage people to move to your area, etc..

What we suck at is maintaining the things we already built or don't serve the same financial purposes.. things like water treatment, waste water treatment, electrical grid, dams.. those are the things we just take for granted and assume they worked fine today, therefore they should work fine tomorrow... until they don't. Then we spend tens of millions replacing them rather than spending a million a year to keep them in good shape.

Not quite the same. That was just some sour grapes. It never had any traction.

My big concern is that when they project income from an increase in corporate tax, they base it on what the taxable income was before the increase takes effect. Everybody and their brother knows that business practices will be adjusted to reduce tax liability.

We should cut taxes on the mega rich donor class and corporations, then the money for all our needs will magically trickle down to us! BRILLIANT!