My favorite part of Joe Biden’s infrastructure proposal is his administration’s treatment of the word—and concept—of infrastructure. Sure the numbers are large, but still not staggeringly large out of context ($2 trillion is just 1/10 of the US’ GNP; but it’s almost half of our annual operating budget. It seems Goldilocksed.) We haven’t attempted a public works project this big, ever—it’s bigger than ARRA and the New Deal combined, in 2021 dollars. The sheer size of this deal should not matter alone. We should be asking what outcomes we’re expecting and how we measure success.
