Subject: Re: Marker: December 9, 2024
IRA did not provide the instant gratification the 'working class voter' wants to see. The USA is a big-ass ship in a very rough sea. That's just the way it is. It's not a popular message.

Because it's wrong. It's not "just the way it is" - it's the result of choices.

Partially it's the result of what the Democrats chose to do. The original BBB was vastly larger, and filled with all sorts of things that benefited the working class. It was a choice to select - out of all those things - the ones that were mostly green infrastructure projects that would take years before groundbreaking. If they had less green provisions, and more child tax credit extension (for example), the benefits would have flowed more immediately.

But also, the fact that it takes forever for public infrastructure efforts to break ground is also the result of choices. It doesn't have to be the case that it takes several years from when Congress approves a project before it starts getting built - that's the result of lots of choices about permitting processes and who (and when) those decisions have entry points for challenges and a host of other regulatory process questions. It's groups within the Democratic coalition that resist any efforts to streamline or speed up those reviews. Their objection to those changes aren't irrational - they have goals and priorities that they're trying to advance - but the consequence of keeping those procedures in place is that government spending takes a very long time to turn into real-world work.

Spending on projects is a major public policy lever for the Federal government - and it's a lever that the Democrats (far more than the Republicans) like to use. But it's the Democrats that have made it much more difficult for that lever to work the way it used to. So when the Democrats choose to make pulling that lever a big part of their major legislative efforts - without making any changes to how it works - they're not going to get much political bang for the buck.