The Democrats’ $3.5 Trillion Gift to the GOP

By Noah Rothman

Thursday, July 15, 2021

 

The more we learn about congressional Democrats’ behemoth “human infrastructure” bill, the more we have to wonder what their Republican opponents did to deserve such a gift.

 

The process that culminated in one of the minority GOP’s chief priorities—cleaving off “physical infrastructure” from the smorgasbord of leftwing policy preferences Democrats tried and failed to rebrand as “infrastructure”—has now produced yet another boon to the opposition party: a single $3.5 trillion bill that includes most of the Democratic legislative agenda.

 

Among other items, the Democrats’ wish list includes an expansion of Medicare coverage to include vision, dental, and hearing care. If passed, the bill would also allow for more low-income families to enroll themselves in Medicaid. Neither of these programs are financially sound. According to Medicare’s trustees, the program’s Hospital Insurance Trust Fund will become insolvent in 2024—a presidential election year. In the absence of new revenue, Democrats are going to have a harder time defending this expansion than Republicans will have attacking the party that presided over seniors’ ballooning hospital bills.

 

The bill includes provisions that provide for “universal” pre-kindergarten education for children ages 3 and 4 and makes attending a two-year community college a debt-free proposition. Voters might appreciate the idea of publicly funded pre-K education on a theoretical level, but Republicans have long been skeptical of the role the federal government would play in such a scheme and what strings would come attached with this money. Given the organic outpouring of hostility toward the racial curricula increasingly advocated by public teachers’ unions, Democrats would be prudent to be skeptical, too.

 

As for “free college,” state-level programs have already found that they divert aid away from low-income students and toward undergraduates of means. “These students still cannot afford college because they struggle with non-tuition costs, such as books, housing, and transportation,” Ed Trust senior higher-education policy analyst Katie Berger wrote. If Republicans cannot make the case against such a naked payoff to preferred Democratic constituents, they are in the wrong business.

 

This multitrillion-dollar cornucopia contains a variety of environmental provisions. The bill forces public utilities to produce a set amount of clean energy and moves the country toward the elimination of fossil fuels. It would impose a tariff on imports from countries that don’t meet certain arbitrarily defined carbon emissions limits—a move that coincidentally corresponds with the European Union’s announcement of a similar proposal. And it would create a “civilian climate corps,” which the New York Times notes is “modeled after New Deal-era programs” designed to “create jobs” in climate activism.

 

It would be malpractice if Republicans were unable to argue against the wisdom of clean-energy mandates and the planned obsolescence of fossil fuels imposed by the very people who brought you rolling blackouts in California and New York. Likewise, the use of taxpayer funds to create a brand-new constituency dedicated to activism that favors Democratic candidates and causes is an easy layup. And while the right’s populist set has discovered a newfound love of protectionist trade policies, policies that make consumer goods more expensive when inflation is on the rise will compel them to argue for the immediate interests of their constituents over the theoretical “Common Good” of the imagined American proletariat.

 

The Democrats are so committed to going for broke that they even included provisions that are proven political losers. The reconciliation bill will include the “PRO Act,” a bill designed to artificially increase union membership by constraining independent contractors and override laws that allow non-union members to opt out of affiliation with dues-collecting labor organizations. That bill was modeled on legislation briefly implemented in California before the state’s voters turned out in droves to repeal it in a referendum. Democrats have also included provisions that would expand access to green cards and provide a pathway to U.S. citizenship for some illegal immigrants; a brazen attempt to circumvent the negotiations over a contentious issue that enthuses the Republicans who oppose it more than it energizes the Democrats who support it.

 

All this, Democrats claim, is “fully funded,” and only by increasing taxes on the wealthiest individuals and giant corporations. This is a laughable assertion that should not be uncritically repeated by mainstream-media outlets. If Democrats want to avoid taxing small businesses and incomes under $400,000, that all but ensures that this mammoth bill will be financed by deficit spending at a time when the U.S. budget deficit has already reached an all-time high of $3.1 trillion. If Democrats believe that no one really cares about the debt and the growth of non-discretionary interest payments on it, this will be a real test of the theory.

 

Finally, Democrats concluded this statement of principles with a warning to their GOP opponents. Pass the physical infrastructure bill on a bipartisan basis, Democrats demanded of Republicans, or that bill will be folded into this potpourri of progressive initiatives to make it even bigger. Republicans are left to wonder if that is a threat or a promise.

 

Much of this may pass through a narrowly divided but, nevertheless, Democrat-led Congress. Stranger things have happened. And yet, a significant number of these legislative goals are almost certain to prove only aspirational. Democrats cannot afford to lose a single vote in the Senate if the package is to pass intact, so a handful of these items may be jettisoned just to keep the party’s fragile coalition intact. Other aspects of the bill could be struck down by the parliamentarian’s objection to provisions that only have budgetary implications if you squint hard enough. And in the end, other elements of this bill may not survive the arcane marathon of votes that accompany the process of reconciliation. So, ultimately, this may end up as less an attempt to transform the nation in one fell swoop than an exercise in making the GOP’s arguments for them.

 

The scope of this package is breathtaking both in its audacity and contempt for basic political realities. It seems Democrats have decided to hurl a Hail Mary in the general direction of the end zone and hope for the best. Republicans downfield must not believe their good fortune.