Everything is now considered infrastructure to the Democrats. Well, everything but roads and bridges. Of Biden’s infrastructure bill, the cost is $2.5 trillion dollars. The amount spent on roads and bridges is between $115 and $169 billion.
When Trump proposed a $1 trillion dollar infrastructure plan where all of the money went to infrastructure, the Democrats killed the bill because it was too expensive.
Now, Bernie Sanders is trying to move the goalp0osts by saying the bill should supply Medicare recipients free dental, free dentures, free hearing aids, and free glasses. He calls it human infrastructure.
The fact is that today’s Medicare Advantage plans already offer help paying for a large portion of a Medicare recipient’s costs for hearing aids and dentures. There are also no deductibles, no copays to your GP doctor and drug coverage is free.
Anchor Jake Tapper asked:
“So you think that things that one could argue are important but not necessarily a part of an infrastructure package such as dealing with college debt? You think that that should be a part of the bill?”
Sanders replied:
“Well, you know, it depends on what you call infrastructure. Roads and bridges and tunnels are infrastructure. I think many of us see a crisis in human infrastructure. When working-class families can’t find good quality affordable child care, that’s human infrastructure.”
“One of the areas that I am working on right now is the need to expand Medicare in order to provide dental care and hearing aids and eye glasses for millions and millions of seniors who need these services but can’t afford it. Is that infrastructure?
I think it is. Look, Jake, the truth is, in so many ways, we are behind many other countries throughout the world in providing for working families and the elderly and the children. And I think now is the time to begin addressing our physical infrastructure and our human infrastructure. I want to see that happen as soon as possible.”
The infrastructure bill is just an excuse to expand spending on liberal wish lists, totally unconnected to infrastructure. Very little money goes to infrastructure repair, but it will contain $20 billion dollars for tearing down “racist highways. Yes, highways that now pass through poor neighborhoods are racist.
But, the thing is once they tear down a highway, they have to build another one. That could cost more than the amount allotted in the infrastructure bill.
