Catherine Rampell thinks the Democrats are walking into a trap when it comes to paying for the upcoming infrastructure package:
Heads I win, tails you lose. That is Republicans’ ominous warning to Democrats working to design and (to their credit!) actually pay for an infrastructure bill.
“I think the Trojan horse will be called infrastructure, but inside the Trojan horse will be all the tax increases,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said this week. “They want to raise taxes across the board.”
For those struggling to decode these comments, here’s the trap McConnell is laying.
Any major upgrade of America’s roads, bridges, broadband network, water systems and other infrastructure will be expensive. That’s part of the reason “Infrastructure Week,” though much hyped in recent years, still hasn’t happened, despite the obvious need for more infrastructure investment and the popularity of such proposals. If Democrats try to undertake this expensive project without paying for it, Republicans will no doubt accuse them of running up the debt and thereby stoking out-of-control inflation. [WaPo]
But I don’t think Rampell, nor the Republicans, have yet reckoned with the mastery that President Biden is beginning to evidence in how he approaches managing the legislative process, and, to a large degree, it’s about the narrative presented to the public.
In this case, it’s not in the least difficult to present the poor circumstances of America’s infrastructure as a result of Republican folly. After all, since 2000 the Republicans have held one or both houses of Congress for most of that time, and yet have they even presented a piece of legislation posing as an infrastructure bill? No.
And that can be used against them in public messaging.
The I-35W Bridge collapse of 2007. I live nearby, so it’s real, not some lefty fake news.
Next, the case for public infrastructure can be easily made. We’ve seen bridges fall down, sewer systems fail, and in general, according to the civil engineers, we’re in a continual state of pasting bandages over gaping wounds. Any personal experience with bad infrastructure just makes it easier.
And this is a hindrance to the free market.
Much like President Clinton, the Democrats must, and I’m sure will, take over what the Republicans consider to be their own territory: commerce and its protection. Commerce, the free market, capitalism, call it what you will, and despite the natterings of the libertarians, cannot exist without the underpinning provided by the State, whether it be roads, sewage systems, licensing, defense, or regulation. By emphasizing the importance of the infrastructure to the private sector, they take away the Republicans’ finger-cramping grasp on private industry – a grasp that has been weakening in the last four years.
Finally, the Democrats would be wise to raise taxes, temporarily, on virtually everyone and all the corporations, and they should do so using the theme of You use it, so you should pay for it. This is the theme of personal responsibility, once a great favorite of Republicans – at least publicly – but by taking it into Democratic hands, Democrats remind the voters that the Republicans have not been great advocates of responsibility in decades, and they reassure the voters that it is something that they take seriously as they continue to clean up the mess left by the irresponsible Republicans.
Again. Don’t forget the Great Recession.
I think Rampell is one of the Biden doubters who still sees the Republicans as a great force, and not the disorganized, backbiting pack of money-grubbers and power-mongers that they’ve become. Operating as a team is near-impossible for such, and I expect the Democrats, under the leadership of Biden, Schumer, and Pelosi, will craft messages to an American public for whom the Republican disasters of the Great Recession, the Pandemic, the 2017 Tax Reform Bill, the Trump Administration, and the thoroughly revolting 2021 Insurrection and its aftermath, paradoxically enhanced as it has been by the activities of Senator Johnson (R-WI) and Representative Gohmert (R-TX) and their fellow travelers, remain fresh in their minds, and the Democratic messages will resonate to a degree shocking to the current third- and fourth- rate Republican leaders.
Look for more egg on Republicans’ faces.
