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A comment on Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much. Parent comment

Re:Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much by throwaway0a5e on Wednesday December 08, 2021 @06:19PM (#29491880)
Broad brush social issues like "trans rights" or "traditional christian values" have approximately zero effect on how politicians from each party deal with city and state level economic issues like transit.
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Re:Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much by jonathankoren on Wednesday December 08, 2021 @06:58PM (#29492216)
It kind of does though. The modern Republican Party despises almost all government spending, including infrastructure. Infrastructure, and trains in particular, are communist.

"[T]he real reason for progressives' passion for trains is their goal of diminishing Americans' individualism in order to make them more amenable to collectivism."

-- George Will, 2011 https://www.newsweek.com/will-why-liberals-love-trains-68597

Federal infrastructure spending is a "communist takeover of America, via so-called infrastructure".

-- Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene, 2021 https://www.newsweek.com/gop-rep-adam-kinzinger-mocks-marjor...

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Re:Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much by throwaway0a5e on Wednesday December 08, 2021 @08:15PM (#29492671)
The republicans are happy to spend money on infrastructure where their constituents are. Of course they hate rail transit because it benefits blue cities. Look at what state and local republicans actually do and not what people say for effect.

I'm kind of inclined to agree that federal infrastructure spending is shit. The fed takes a bunch of money then gives it back with strings. The states should just be keeping that money and spending it as they see fit. This isn't exactly an uncommon opinion either.

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Re:Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much by krapp on Wednesday December 08, 2021 @07:26PM (#29492411)
To be fair... and I really don't want to be fair to a lunatic who believes forest fires are caused by Jewish space lasers... Rep. Greene was stripped of all of her committee roles by unanimous (including Republican) consent due to her supporting political violence against Nancy Pelosi and the FBI. So she (at least) isn't likely to be influencing policy any time soon absent an actual Trump second term. Even the article you just posted mentions her being ridiculed by Republicans, who voted for the bill mentioned there anyway.

that said, I remember similar things being said about the Trans-Texas corridor when it was being proposed years ago, that it was just a secret way for Democrats to allow NWO troops into the US through Mexico to take over. So there definitely is a weird fear of mass transit infrastructure being some kind of socialist/communist plot among the American right. It still seems to be fringe, though. Rural voters want and depend on infrastructure spending, and it's an easy way to be seen "doing something."

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