We have grown tired of the arguing, year after year, campaign after campaign, administration after administration about rebuilding or improving our infrastructure.

While all of this talking and proposing and blaming and balking has been going on, I have replaced the front struts on my car—not a cheap thing to do—perhaps because I hit a few too many serious potholes in the seven years I’ve owned the car (it’s a great car, so great that I see no reason to replace it—and I’ve driven its 2021 replacement).

They talk. I pay to replace my struts.

President Biden this week announced a $2.25 Trillion infrastructure plan.  He wants to offset its further expansion of the federal debt by increasing the tax on corporations and people who are a lot richer than almost everybody who reads these entries.

Immediate opposition has come from the usual sources—the people on the other side of the aisle.  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has branded Biden’s plan a “Trojan Horse,” saying, “It’s called infrastructure, but inside the Trojan Horse is going to be more borrowed money and massive tax increases.”

By “massive tax increases” he appears to mean a rollback of part of the “massive tax cuts” the Republican Congress approved under the Trump administration in 2017, cuts that were supposed to help the simple folk who work for the people and companies that got the tax increases.  Many of the folks who find the tax increase odious are the same people who have complained about the increasing the national debt for infrastructure building/rebuilding.

From time to time we hear political leaders from both sides bemoaning, on one hand, the cynicism of the public toward the political process while on the other hand they take advantage of that cynicism by appealing to it to get votes and campaign money.

While they play their games, my car’s struts keep taking beatings.

The Biden plan spreads the fiscal pain through several years.  It has several elements, some of which are more urgent to address than others.  There’s plenty of room for compromise—we’ll pass this but you’ll have to ditch that for now—if anybody wants to compromise.  But why compromise when you can just fight?

We’re tired of hearing our politicians say they’ll “fight” for us.   To Hell with fighting.  DO something for us!

For starters, here is an alternative plan that Republicans might consider supporting because it comes from one of theirs:

This infrastructure plan would be smaller and narrower.  It would involve spending up to one-trillion dollars financed by government bonds that average citizens as well as big-money investors could buy.

It’s kind of like the War Bonds that were issued during WWII to finance the fight against the Axis. Yes, the national debt would be increased but the payout would be gradual and spread through a number of years and, as some politicians and economic theoreticians like to say from time to time, the economic benefits would produce the increased revenues to pay off the debt.

This idea was proposed in 2016 by candidate Donald J. Trump—and his party has demonstrated he could do no wrong. It never gained any traction during his administration, perhaps because he suggested it to counter a smaller proposal by opponent Hillary Clinton and then, once in office, abandoned it because it was no longer needed for political points when there were more self-beneficial things to talk about.

The Clinton campaign rejected the Trump proposal, by the way, saying “Donald Trump’s only actual infrastructure proposal is the build a giant wall on the Mexican border and have Mexico pay for it.”  In retrospect there seems to be an element of truth in that observation. We’re still waiting to hear the Treasury Department announce the arrival of the first payment from Mexico, by the way.

Conservative critics of the Trump plan might have used the word “Trojan Horse” to describe it because, as New York Times reporter Alan Rappaport related, they believed, it was similar to a stimulus plan set forth in 2009 by President Obama and would worsen the national debt.

Any plan put forth by Obama had to be blocked because it was from Obama.  Any plan from Trump had to be blocked because it came from Trump. Today, if it comes from Biden, it must be automatically opposed by those who offer nothing but attacks.

So while our politicians in Washington continue to speak with forked tongues, the potholes keep getting deeper, the bridges keep getting weaker, old lead sewer and water pipes become more dangerous, and a public that absorbs all of this (aided and abetted by powerful undermining  voices on the air and in print) continues to incrementally lose faith in the democratic form of government.

Those in public office who prefer to stoke the fires of public dissatisfaction with the processes of government are the ones who are building a Trojan Horse. We saw on January 6 what is inside it—anarchy and totalitarianism, which do not seek nor want what is best for the nation.

And in Washington, it appears, the only thing that matters is an argument not over how the gate can be made more secure, but over whose hand most weakly holds it closed.