Grab-bag spending bill is NOT about infrastructure

Daniel Garza, president of The LIBRE Initiative, notes in a new op-ed that all the talk in Washington on the need to do something about infrastructure doesn’t have much to do with infrastructure.

In Real Clear Policy, Garza writes:

Instead of a carefully crafted bill with a focus on genuine problems, leaders are trying to cobble together votes to spend as much as $4 trillion on programs that will do little to improve roads and bridges, but which will hurt our economy, increase taxes, and damage small businesses trying to recover from the pandemic.

For America’s Hispanic community, that would be a critical policy mistake.

Just at the moment when the economy is beginning to bounce back from the yearlong COVID-19 pandemic and the associated economic lockdowns, this is a recipe for disaster.

It’s also a recipe for dissimulation. As Garza notes,

Only a small fraction of the bill is actually devoted to improving traditional infrastructure. By and large, it’s a grab bag of costly partisan projects unrelated to roads and bridges, including sweetheart subsidies for politically preferred companies and industries.

Just as bad for Hispanics, millions of whom rely on independent contracting for their livelihoods, the measure would restrict workers’ ability to earn a living as independent contractors and impose costly penalties that would bankrupt the small businesses who hire them.

Read more at Real Clear Policy about why Congress and the president should work together to come up with common-sense reforms that can win bipartisan support.