Reading the news lately on the big infrastructure package (aka President Biden’s Build Back Better plan), it seems like the big stumbling block is price. Some think 3.5 trillion is way to much: others think of it as a compromise on the low side.

I recently read an article (How the Democrats Can Pass the Entire Reconciliation Bill) which makes a lot of sense to me. Here is a brief excerpt:

But at least in theory, there’s a third option: Fully funding every program in the $3.5 trillion package—not for the next decade, as the package proposes, but just for the next four years, at a considerable reduction in price.

The advantages that accrue to this course are social, economic, and, most pointedly, political. It would make the 2024 election a referendum on whether the public wishes to continue those programs by further funding them, or prefers to end them. Democrats would run on preserving the programs and re-upping their funding. That would compel Republicans to run against what should be widely popular policies, whether or not they nominate Donald Trump for president (but especially if they did, as Trump, even more than his GOP underlings, opposes everything Joe Biden supports).

If the package in whole (or part acceptable to all Democrats) is funded for 4 years, rather than 10, the price tag will come down significantly. Also the 2024 election will become a referendum on whether or not the American people want this to continue.