It will get harder, in days ahead, to deny the power of government working for the common good.
As money approved by Congress for road, bridge and rail projects transits through Tallahassee to counties throughout Florida, we will see results cast in concrete and steel, of months of political debate. Not only will these infrastructure repairs smooth our daily rides and make our families safer but they will drive our economy, already revving its way out of the pandemic, to new heights.
Thanks to an economic foundation fortified during the Obama years to lift us out of deep recession, and to injections of stimulus cash that a Democratic-majority Congress approved in the early months of the pandemic, unemployment rates are near historic lows and Wall Street is confident enough in the nation's corporate growth that market indices are near historic highs.
While the troubling gap between poor and rich has continued to widen, many millions in the workforce have seen tax-deferred retirement plans soar over these past couple of years. The markets have climbed steeply and steadily despite the onset of a viral siege that has taken a dozen times more American lives in less than two years than the Vietnam War did in 20.
U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel, D-West Palm Beach, in a conversation last week after Congress approved the infrastructure bill, told the Palm Beach Post Editorial Board that the package will include $19 billion worth of projects, including: $13.1 billion for federal highways; $2.6 billion for public transporation; $1.6 billion for clean water projects; $1.2 billion for airports; $245 million for bridge replacement and repairs; $198 million for electric vehicle charging stations; $100 million to expand high-speed internet access; $29 million to guard against cyber attacks; and $26 million for wildfire protection.
Florida also can apply for $1 billion in competitive grants, for Army Corps of Engineers projects such as port-dredging; electric vehicle infrastructure; zero-emission buses; rail safety; electric grid resiliency and upgrades; energy cybersecurity; and flood mitigation measures.
President Joe Biden continues to hold out a hand to bipartisan participation, only to have it slapped away reflexively.
"It's not easy making a sausage," as Frankel put it, referring to internal Democratic disagreements as much as the standoff with Republicans in lockstep opposition. "It's like we're being punished for trying to do the right thing."
Other than Democrats, American voters have only 13 Republican representatives to thank for the infrastructure bill. And those 13 now face the loss of committee assignments, retribution from a party whose culture favors political war over doing the right thing for constituents.
Frankel noted that Florida's Republican senators, Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, voted against the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, as they had against the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan before it, the economic stimulus bill that powered the economy forward through the pandemic early on. They've also fought against the Affordable Care Act every step of the way, leaving an estimated 2.8 million Floridians without health insurance.
Gov. Ron DeSantis boasts of a $7.5 million state road project near Tampa while dissing the $1.2 trillion infrastructure plan as "pork barrel spending, from what I could tell." One can only hope his administration will direct the federal money it gets to the purposes for which it was designated.
Frankel assured those concerned about the trillions the government is spending that the bills will pay for themselves, through a combination of increased taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals. On that score, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is assessing the Build Back Better plan before it comes up for a vote.
That transformative plan, which would bolster the working classes with help for pre-K education and childcare, among many other social benefits, presents recalcitrant Republicans with a chance to redeem themselves, rather than just take credit for the projects they opposed.
Sadly, in recent years integrity has not been a hallmark of the GOP, once God-fearing, now just Trump-cowering. There's no reason to expect more from the family values party in months ahead.
As 2022 and 2024 approach, American citizens, who in recent years have favored Democratic presidential candidates by millions of votes, would do well to remember how well they're being served and which party truly is working for equity for the common man and woman.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Editorial: Infrastructure bill promises Florida big economic benefits
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