Thus, infrastructure - be it physical or human - is not welfare. It doesn't produce an "entitlement society." Instead, it's the core foundation on which a functional society rests, the soil in which business can root itself, and the launching pad for a horizon-free future.
Another way to think of it is through the lens of economics and accounting.
"Welfare" is an expense. It doesn't make things better: when appropriately funded it simply keeps them from becoming worse. It pays dividends in that it keeps people alive and functional, but just barely. The "return on investment" to the government is minimal outside of its moral duty.
"Rights of citizenship" like infrastructure, on the other hand, are investments. They pay returns and dividends. Invest "x" and over years or decades you'll get multiples of "x" in return. Even police and fire, when run right, keep neighborhoods crime-free and facilitate commerce, growing the local economy. New transportation, education, and healthcare infrastructure build prosperity and attract investment in the larger community.
Not understanding this simple distinction is the major failure of neoliberal and "conservative" politicians, guided, in large part, by so-called "think tanks" and pundits funded by rightwing billionaires who, frankly, don't care about either "welfare" or "rights of citizenship/infrastructure."
After all, being morbidly rich billionaires, they don't need either.
They can afford the best healthcare in the world with their pocket change; they travel on private jets outside of public airports (never even having to go through security); and they send their kids to the best private schools in the world regardless of the local tax base.
And since welfare and infrastructure are both are funded by tax dollars - which the morbidly rich go to great lengths to avoid paying - pushing politicians to reject both only adds more dollars to their money bins that otherwise would have gone to taxes.
While Joe Manchin's understanding of these fundamental, high-school-civics differences in government programs is disappointing, it shouldn't be surprising. He was born into wealth and is, himself, a multimillionaire coal baron, living on the largest yacht at my old home, the Capital Yacht Club (among his other homes).
But Joe Biden - who spent his life traveling home from DC to Delaware every weekend on public transportation via Amtrak - understands this at a gut level. New roads, bridges, and broadband infrastructure are investments that will return dividends to both society and our economy. He knows that strengthening our infrastructure strengthens our nation.
Biden understands that replacing fossil-fuel based energy infrastructure with made-in-America renewables like solar and wind both reduce our dependence on brutal foreign oligarchs like Saudi Arabia's murderous MBS while producing power for generations with little more than simple maintenance.
He knows that sending young people to college at no or little cost - as is done in every other advanced democracy in the world - is a simple investment in our nation's families and intellectual infrastructure that will pay dividends for generations into our future.
Progressives working on his legislative agenda realize that providing people with a robust and low-cost healthcare system is an investment in our ultimate infrastructure: our people. Without healthy workers there is no reliable economy; with healthy workers an economy becomes ever-more vibrant, which is why every other developed country in the world except the US provides free or low-cost universal healthcare and takes care of all their seniors' medical needs.
Rightwing billionaire propaganda aside, these are not "welfare" or "entitlements," and they don't cause people to "become lazy" or "refuse to work." As we strengthen and "Build Back Better" our physical and human infrastructure, we simultaneously strengthen our nation while moving us into a cleaner, safer, and more reliable future.
In every other developed country in the world, these things are simple rights of citizenship. They should be here, too, if we want to compete in the 21st century and improve our (slipping) status as a First World nation.
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