The $1.2 trillion-dollar spending bill Democrats just passed, joined by some Republicans, is being hailed as a national success, upgrading roads, bridges, airports, ports, and “national infrastructure.” Having read hundreds of pages, it is nothing of the sort.
Biden, Democrats, media, and vested interests call this spending spree a win. Like Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal, border, homicides, overdoses, defunding police, inflation, Critical Race Theory, this is not a Biden win – or win for America.
Overview: The law federalizes your life. Constitutional damage done is serious. Here is why.
First, barely a tenth of the bill, if you go by chunks, applies to repair of what most think of as critical infrastructure, fixing a bridge you cross, road you drive, ferry dock, or sidewalk.
The majority is social engineering, federal control over the private sector and life, state mandates, hundreds of databases, grants, boards, and requirements. Reading differing versions is stultifying. See, e.g., H.R.3684 – Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
While the law was changed and re-changed, the essence is unchanged – offensive, contrary to common sense, unapologetic, federalizes what has long been – not federal.
Here is a top view, sampling. The law restricts liberty, federalizes life, defies common sense.
Example: Deer in America overpopulate urban and rural areas. Once just 300,000, the number 30 million. Experts say eight deer per kilometer is right; we have 100. Obvious answer? Thin the overpopulation, preventing so many deer from colliding with cars. See, e.g., White-Tailed Deer Overpopulation in the United States.
Democrats’ answer? Against an anti-hunting backdrop, they push hundreds of pages – and billions of dollars – at “improvements to reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions, such as wildlife crossing structures.” Imaginative ways to protect deer appear in Section 11103.
Jump to federalizing supply-and-demand for autos, for electric vehicles, “electric recharging programs,” billions to convert America to slow-motion, battery-centric, electric autos – never explaining job loss, energy inflation, or where electricity comes from, carbon-centric production.
Never mind, as Section 11109 forgets about energy independence, individual choice, economic laws – all promoting socialist virtue. Local governments are “consulted,” no veto.
Federal promotion extends to cycling, walking, “traffic calming techniques,” endless “wildlife crossing safety,” because “tens of thousands of serious injuries and hundreds of fatalities” come from not honoring wildlife,” and cars are “a major threat to the survival of species, including birds, reptiles, mammals, and amphibians.” See, Section 11122, et seq.
Billions will be spent on animal bridges, fences, tunnels, nets to protect buzzards, turtles, deer, and frogs. Makes sense to me, you? Why keep hard-earned money, when such crises loom?
Federal “courses” will teach us to avoid such hazards, while Section 11133 promotes “electric bicycles,” if partially “pedaled” and “not over 20 miles per hour.” Surely, this is what the Foundering Fathers thought federal government was for, right?
Requirements abound for “state human capital plans” to meet “workforce needs” (e.g., Section 11202), federalizing how labor is used privately. These plans must assure “continuity of leadership and knowledge sharing across the state,” fill “workplace gaps,” forget markets.
Another section demands state “websites be user-friendly,” ironic coming from the federal government. With this are big databases, as in Section 11205, to track travel and “behavior responses” for those riving, riding, cycling, or walking.
“At least one person with a disability” must be on certain federal boards. Amtrak is on notice for “passenger experience enhancement” and must form a “working group to improve onboard food and beverages.” Tax dollars at work. “No smoking” but better “cross border service with Canada,” perhaps soon Mexico?
Section 23007 – and pages after – pushes “promoting women in the trucking workforce,” despite dozens of federal laws and decisions supporting non-discrimination, market freedom.
Contrary to the treatment of data from the military, this bill notes women in trucking must be pushed because “women have been shown to be 20 percent less likely than male counterparts to be involved in a crash.” Should comparative data apply to male-female combat performance then?
In another eye-popping provision, federal money is pushed to assure more “minority women drivers.” This must be a crisis, border, China, and inflation notwithstanding. To this, add pages regulations, research, studies, reports on everything – limousines, “child restraints, especially for underserved populations,” “child heatstroke,” how we use “lanes,” “driver misunderstanding,” and “marijuana” impaired driving, “especially” when injuries are to the “disabled” (kid you not), even as Democrats push drug legalization (not kidding again).
While more money is pushed for “marijuana research,” the law creates “nationally certified child safety technicians” and makes up a difference in police officer pay if officers shift from “drug recognition expert training” to administrative roles. Why?
The law pushes no texting at stoplights or stopped in traffic, motorcycle and bicycle helmets (other “non-motorized safety”), new rules for headlights, hoods, bumpers, crash dummy genders.
A federal push for “non-motorized boat use” comes with “electrification” of everything from “taxis” to “school buses,” which are historically private and local.
New “emergency” powers, “hydrogen hubs,” “nuclear plants,” and “digital equity,” with countless new databases across sectors from energy and transportation, to you name it, are here.
While bridges, roads, ports, ferry terminals, broadband, cyber-safety, and Amtrak food may improve, the overreach is breathtaking – threefold impact: We are less free, paying big bucks to be less free, and a precedent set is for wild federalization. Is this reversible, yes, but damaging to liberty, unnecessary, costly, bad for America – without question. To be clear: No success.
