Jeff Greenfield:
I feel it is one other instance of the place polarization has. I am going to use the phrase contaminated virtually each side of our public life. Simply in the previous couple of months, when the Senate handed the infrastructure invoice, 40 p.c of the Senate Republicans voted for it. Few months later, it grew to become a hot-button political concern amongst Republicans. Solely 15 p.c of Home Republicans voted for it. So sure, it doesn’t matter what the difficulty is, you’d suppose, Hey, what? We will enhance the grid. We will enhance rural broadband. It turns into contaminated with politics.
And I ought to point out one other concern, inflation. We hit the most important inflation price in 40 years. That may inevitably drive up the price of each building venture. As a result of every thing from metal to wages will increase, state and native governments could also be way more reluctant to place of their share of the fee. And as a basic notion, it is going to make any infrastructure venture the goal and folks say, Properly, with inflation, we simply cannot afford it, to not point out the truth that how one can’t make an omelet with out breaking eggs, you possibly can’t construct infrastructure with out disruption.
So a 12 months from now, it is more likely that we will be seeing torn up roads and closed bridges and practice delays as these infrastructure tasks start to get constructed.
