IF YOU ARE skeptical by nature, you might say the recently passed $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill is destined to be another government boondoggle riddled with out of control cost overruns, blown deadlines, fraud, mismanagement and projects that end with real and metaphorical bridges to nowhere.

The bill approved in early November includes funding for roads, bridges, tunnels, airports, ports, waterways, electric vehicles, broadband, clean water and energy systems, school improvements and a host of other pork-barrel projects intended to benefit members of Congress in their re-election efforts.

It would be fair to wonder where the leadership will come from to ensure the projects are completed on time and budget, wrote Harvard University professor Ranjay Gulati. Most of the projects won’t even be started for up to five years.

Gulati wondered if we have the systems, leaders and management manpower to implement these programs, and give taxpayers a good bang for the buck.

Government agencies at every level have a history of fighting over control of major government spending programs, whether in military contracts, health care and social welfare spending. Where will competent leadership come from? Who will take responsibility and be accountable for the waste?

Skeptics will point to the Big Dig highway project in Boston, Mass., as the granddaddy of all boondoggles, but there are many others running a close second. The project legacy was tarnished by waste, corruption, design flaws and poor execution.

The Big Dig began in 1991, and was supposed to have been completed in 1998, at a cost of $2.8 billion. Instead, it wasn’t finished until 2007, and the total cost, including debt financing, has been estimated at around $23 billion.

Democrats claim the infrastructure bill pays for itself through a multitude of accounting tricks and measures without raising taxes. No one believes that. Those claims were quickly debunked by the Congressional Budget Office which said the bill will add $350 billion to the national deficit over the next 10 years.



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PRESIDENT JOE Biden has conveniently confused the super rich with high-wage earners and falsely portrayed the latter as tax evaders who don’t pay their fair share. That’s a false tax narrative committed intentionally.

It’s insulting to those men and women who have worked and saved their whole lives. Their income has grown over the years. They have paid their bills, taxes and often aggressively funded their retirement. They don’t deserve to be shamed and disrespected.

It’s frustrating as liberals and progressives advocating a socialist agenda tell them ad nauseam the lie that they are getting away with something at tax time, even if they’ve paid 50% of their income in taxes.

As an extreme example, Democrat Sen. Elizabeth Warren has accused Tesla electric car maker Elon Musk of freeloading off everyone else. Musk, the world’s richest person, responded by saying he will pay more than $11 billion in taxes this year. It isn’t clear if Sen. Warren considers this his fair share.

Adding to the insult, Biden has the gall to stand in front of a teleprompter and say his multitrillion dollar Build Back Better spending bills won’t cost Americans earning less than $400,000 a year more than one thin dime in additional taxes.

He defended that absurd statement by saying if you pay for something it doesn’t cost anything. This rhetoric and policy is many things, but a recipe for social justice isn’t one of them. Proponents can say the costs are worth paying, but they can’t argue they cost nothing.