AMERICAN JOBS PLAN BALONEY
THE
The Biden administration’s $6.25 trillion “American Jobs Plan” promises...
Oh, what doesn’t it promise? ... reliable transportation, safe water, affordable housing, healthy schools, clean electricity, broadband for all, five golden rings, four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree. I may be slightly misquoting the last part. But not by much. This article would be much shorter if I made a list of what the American Jobs Plan is not vowing to accomplish. In fact, I might be able to write the piece in three words... Make pigs fly . No. Strike that. We’d have to put wings on a whole bunch of swine if all the pork that Biden proposes is going to get off the ground. But one thing in the American Jobs Plan that’s certain to come true is the promise that your head will explode if you try to read it. Go to the “Briefing Room” at whitehouse.gov and click on “FACT SHEET: The American Jobs Plan.” Here is an outline of the spending agenda presumably simplified to the point where even Democratic members of Congress can comprehend it. And this – the condensed, dumbed-down, EZ-reading version – is 27 pages long. Although it is not, in fact, easy reading. Sample prose style:
... the President’s plan will use smart, coordinated infrastructure permitting to expedite federal decisions while prioritizing stakeholder engagement, community consultation, and maximizing equity, health, and environmental benefits.
The White House needs to quit getting its junior staff from Harvard and Yale and start hiring people who are better educated. The Fact Sheet is, however, illuminating. You need to go no farther than its second sentence to discover that the American Jobs Plan is not only squandering in its expense and ridiculous in its expanse, but also wrong and bad: This is the moment to reimagine and rebuild a new economy. Such moments have come before. There was the moment when Lenin nationalized all business and industry in the U.S.S.R., the moment when Stalin collectivized Soviet agriculture, the moment Hitler decided to pay off the German national debt by conquering Europe, the moment Mao announced his “Great Leap Forward.” Not to mention the moments of reimagining a new economy in Mussolini’s Italy, Kim Il-sung’s North Korea, Castro’s Cuba, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, etc. The idea that a government can “rebuild” an economy (versus the idea that, at best, a
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June 2021
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