When all else has failed in the past three and a half years for Donald Trump—and boy has a lot failed—the White House has declared a new commitment to finding a big, beautiful infrastructure plan. It's always infrastructure week in the White House, but for the first time, there's actually a bill. Not from the White House, mind you, but the Democratic House. On Wednesday, the House approved a $1.5 trillion plan for roads, bridges, transit, railways, harbors, and ports. It also highlights internet and the Postal Service as critical infrastructure.
It authorizes $100 billion to expand the internet and get broadband to rural and low-income communities, and $25 billion for the Postal Service to modernize systems and operations. That includes an electric fleet of postal trucks. Rep. Peter DeFazio, the Democratic chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee from Oregon, called it a "transformational investment in American infrastructure that will create millions of jobs." Those jobs would be handy to have if the bill passed the Senate and was signed in to law, to have projects ready and waiting for when we finally get out of the coronavirus pandemic.
It's not going to happen, however. Trump has promised a veto, saying the bill "is heavily biased against rural America," and based on debt financing, while it "fails to tackle the issue of unnecessary permitting delays." Now's one of the times Republicans care about the debt. Of course this is all nonsense—the broadband to rural areas project alone would be a massive boon to those communities.
The legislation's main program is a $500 billion, 5-year plan to rebuild roads, bridges, and railways. It would divert money from the Highway Trust Fund to repurpose for transit and rail projects. It boosts zero-emission transportation, so right there is enough to make Mitch McConnell toss it in the bin. But, it's a head start for Democrats in 2021, when the Senate and White House flip and we can start to get serious again about saving this nation.