Joe Biden's infrastructure plan

bump, I'm interested in discussions about this. Really curious whether they're able to come to an agreement with the Republicans, they're getting close but still have a ways to go. One thing that seems more unique vs historical attempts is that Democrats are adding social infrastructure components into the overall plan. Politically, it may make more sense for them just to leave those out and pass those themselves, but a lot of these kinds of investments would have some significant changes in a lot of ways. Not saying that it's necessarily a good or bad thing, just interesting to see less roads and bridges and more old-age care.

Whenever the feds are involved, from a financial perspective it's undeniable there's a huge potential for waste. One thing that I thought was interesting when I read through the original White House plan was that it called for the creation of several new agencies and new funding plans, despite there already existing several agencies that exist in the infrastructure investment space (e.g., DOT's TIFIA program, DOE's LPO, EPA's WIFIA program, etc.). The White House plan didn't really seem to call for diverting more money towards these programs which I thought was interesting. As with many federal programs, dealing with them can be very bureaucratic and make the deal process significantly longer vs regular arms-length investors, but both DOT and the DOE's LPO have been revising their eligibility requirements to make it easier for investors to take advantage of federal money/credit/loan guarantees/etc.

I'm not as knowledgeable about the effects on inflation, but it would certainly pick up with Biden's desires to build more in the US, procure US products, and have every single job under the sun a "good-paying union job".