PRESIDENT Joe Biden threw everything, including the kitchen sink, into his $2 trillion-plus “infrastructure” proposal — and that, more than any individual policy, has become the main point of friction over the plan.
The New York Times accurately reported that a Beltway battle was raging over the name: Biden calls his blueprint the American Jobs Plan; Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., calls it a “Trojan horse.”
The president’s decision to combine a host of issues into a single proposal — from roads, bridges and broadband to housing tax hikes and elder care — is not unusual. It is arguably the most effective way to enact significant legislation in the modern era, and there are plenty of examples of both parties’ having stapled policies together when they have the power and the political capital to do it.
“If you look at the post-war Congresses, the practice of omnibus legislating has
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