The Sad Farce of Our ‘Infrastructure Debate’

T he debate playing out in Washington, D.C., over the Democrats’ much-desired “infrastructure” package is taking place at such a ridiculous level of inside-baseball abstraction that one half expects Mitt Romney to walk up to a camera next week and shout, “Punk’d!”

What, exactly, is at stake here? What is the purpose of the push? What do each of the major players hope to achieve? How should the people who will end up paying for it — us — conceive of the state of play?

From the news reports, one would be forgiven for concluding that the whole thing is a parlor game. President Biden wants $2.25 trillion, some Republicans want $0, but yet others might be prepared to meet him somewhere in the middle: perhaps $300 billion, or maybe $600 billion, or even $1 trillion in a pinch, providing that that includes the existing baseline. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R., W.Va.) says that if we’re going to spend money, it should be on things of the hard variety — stuff you can drive on or fly into or span a river with. Senator Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) mostly agrees, and is especially keen to avoid spending on climate-change mitigation. But this is a real problem for Senators Ed Markey (D., Mass.) and Martin Heinrich (D., N.M.), who say the absence of green-energy funding will kill the bill for them.

Nobody has adequately explained why we need to spend anything at all.

Most debates over public policy at least have some handles onto which the public can hold: Should the United States invade Iraq? Should it be harder or easier to buy guns? Should health insurers be prohibited from turning away customers with preexisting conditions? This time, though, there is nothing concrete whatsoever. Nobody has established a discrete set of problems the bill is meant solve, or a discrete set of solutions. There are no obvious moral or practical consequences at stake. Instead, we are watching an abstruse debate over numbers and categories. At some point, the Biden administration decided it wanted to spend more than $2 trillion — on what, it doesn’t seem much to care — and all the other players triangulated from there. If it weren’t so sad, it would be funny.

But it’s not funny. The national debt has just exceeded annual GDP for the first time since World War II; this year’s budget deficit will hit $3 trillion; the recent “relief” bill spent nearly three times the gap between expected and potential output; by President Biden’s own admission, all of this comes while the economy is already booming; and, most pressingly of all, after a long and welcome absence from the forefront of American politics, inflation seems to be back on the table. It would be a mistake for Congress to start throwing trillions of dollars around even if there were some compelling reason to do so. But spending that kind of money just so Democrats can say they have done something is absurd.

Advocates of infrastructure bills like to point out that “infrastructure” is popular in opinion polls. And, indeed, it is. But it should matter that, when one presses the matter, infrastructure spending turns out to be popular in the same way that the concept of lunch is popular. When asked, “Do you think people should spend money on lunch?” most people will naturally say “Yes.” But when asked, “Are you hungry at the moment?” or, “Do you want to borrow enormous amounts of money to pay for food you don’t need,” or, “Do you want the federal government to decide what your local community should have for lunch?” their answers will inevitably change.

An old criticism of the overzealous is that they move from “something must be done” to “this is something,” and, finally, to “therefore this must be done.” So it is here. Aware that he may end up needing Republicans more than he believes, President Biden has started saying that he is open to suggestions as to what the trillions of dollars he covets should be spent on, though he is not open to declining to spend the money at all. But it is not incumbent upon lawmakers to acquiesce to the largest figures their opponents throw out and to consent to haggle only over the details. There is nothing especially wrong with America’s infrastructure — and what is wrong can be fixed almost exclusively by private enterprise and by the states. Far from being “obstructionist,” it is perfectly reasonable for legislators of both parties to answer the question, “Well, what is your plan, then?” by saying, “Nothing.”

Complaining to CNN’s Manu Raju yesterday, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.) summed up the cart-before-the-horse nature of the fracas as well as anyone has. “I have no confidence that this bipartisan group will reach a deal,” Blumenthal said. “They should have a limited time to do so. I really think it’s time to pull the plug now and take action promptly and robustly. We simply do not have the time to waste.” In truth, the exact opposite is the case. We have all the time in the world to waste, because, even at this late stage in the proceedings, the real debate has not so much as begun.