The Senate moves forward on infrastructure bill. Much of what is in the bill appears to be focused on basic upgrades that are likely to have net positives for our country; even if we don't yet have the metrics to measure them. There are areas where healthy debate should occur to further define funding and specifics but the overall need to update the infrastructure in some way is still a necessary part of staying globally competitive. Barring any real alternative solutions to do that, it would make sense to work on this bill and see how far it can go.
Of course there are other ways to finance items but they become outside our governance norm. For example, I think about a calibrated tax plan where companies that do business here but don't have a HQ have one tax rate and those who have a U.S. based HQ receive another rate (Hopefully, leading to companies that move here instead of just doing business.). The system would repurpose some of that tax base (%) back into improving and updating the infrastructure in a sustainable way (Hopefully, leading to improvement of our environment from generation to generation.). As people use more of the infrastructure the money moves into building out and improving functionality (Its just a basic idea I'm working on for economics in the Digital Age. Could be something helpful someday or might be sort of a dead end but either way its a challenge to come up with something.). The "profits" and/or excess capital produced from the economic activity associated with infrastructure is the generated value beyond its maintenance and that becomes excess capital for government (....business also earns their own profit. Companies go where there is things like strong infrastructure, skilled labor, reasonable tax rate, innovation, access to resources, etc...) to spend on other programs.
