Does the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill give us some insight into the cost of immigration?

by philg

With the U.S. already having spent more, as a percentage of GDP, on infrastructure than Germany (previous post), how did we get to the point that we needed to spend another $1.2 trillion? (sounds like a lot, but maybe $1.2 trillion will be the price of a Diet Coke by the time some of these projects are completed)

In How much would an immigrant have to earn to defray the cost of added infrastructure? I did a rough calculation that every new migrant would cost the U.S. $250,000 in infrastructure expense. At that rate, the $1.2 trillion will build (or repair) enough infrastructure for 4.8 million migrants (as many people as live in Los Angeles+San Jose (the cities themselves) or about four years of legal immigration under the pre-2021 rules).

So, maybe we could look at this as catching up to the costs of the immigrants who arrived since 2017. On the other hand, is the money going to be spent in states where immigrants have settled and/or where population is growing? And on the third hand, why is infrastructure spending federalized? Don’t individual states have a better idea of what infrastructure is required? Wouldn’t it make more sense for states to tax, borrow, and spend on infrastructure as necessary than to send money up to central planners and have them, sitting in Washington, D.C., try to figure out whether a bridge that is 2,500 miles away should be rebuilt?

Here in Florida, infrastructure spending includes some awesome signage:

Related:

  • “Yes, Immigration Hurts American Workers” (Politico, by a Harvard professor): if we ignore costs such as traffic and school congestion, there are some financial benefits to natives from low-skill immigration, but they all go to the rich at the expense of the poor and working class (i.e., low-skill immigration transfers wealth from American workers to American landlords and corporation owners)

4 thoughts on “Does the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill give us some insight into the cost of immigration?”

  1. $1.2 trillion felt a lot more revolutionary 14 years ago than it does now. Only a few thou are actually going to infrastructure. Most of it funds government pension funds, healthcare, subcontractors, & Comca$t executives. Not enough was left over in 2012 to do anything.

    The lion kingdom’s day job had high hopes that Obama’s infrastucture plans would cause a windfall. Nothing happened after all the kickbacks & they let everyone go. Now they’re making the same predictions again.

  2. A trillion here a trillion there at some point you are going to be talking about real money! -Everett Dirksen

  3. What’s a trillion among the friends of the “elite”?

    “Infrastructure” is just an euphemism for graft.

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