Category: Thought leadership
While there are many good things promised, it pays to look this ‘Trojan Horse’ in the mouth. While there are many good things promised, it pays to look this ‘Trojan Horse’ in the mouth. While there are many good things promised, it pays to look this ‘Trojan Horse’ in the mouth.
There is no shortage of hyperbole around Joe Biden’s $2.25tn initiative. The President himself proclaimed it a “once-in-a-generation” investment and said that “this is the moment when America won the future.” Comparisons are being made to the “New Deal,” and even to the Moonshot.
But this hyperbole risks stretching the meaning of words to breaking point. Republican critics dismissed the initiative as a “Trojan Horse,” a return to big Government and high taxation, which sneaks in a Green New Deal. The high taxation point is stretching it, but the other two criticisms stand examination.
It is true that only about a quarter of the money being spent ($621bn) is on what is traditionally thought of as infrastructure (roads, bridges, railways etc). $650bn is to be spent on ‘modern infrastructure’ (which is mainly alternative energy initiatives), $400bn on ‘care infrastructure’ (i.e., welfare programmes), and $580bn on Biden’s Trump-esque ‘indust…