The “Bipartisan” Infrastructure Bill is Nothing but a Corporate Giveaway.

We need to talk about “asset recycling” and what it means.

Photo by David Martin on Unsplash

With the infrastructure bill likely to be one of the last big pieces of legislation that the Democrats could pass before they settle in to campaign season, obviously those of us who follow politics are eager to see how it unfolds. But while we talk about the politics and optics of the weak “bipartisan” infrastructure legislation, it’s critical that we also discuss the actual policy at stake, and touch on what it means to hand over public infrastructure to the private sector as this bill does.

As David Dayen writes in the subheading of the article he wrote on the topic for The American Prospect, this bill essentially handles infrastructure as Donald Trump proposed to: by selling it off to private financiers.

Dayen points out that the bipartisan bill ensures that a chunk of the funding comes from “asset recycling”. According to the Federal Highway Administration, asset recycling is defined as:

“Asset Recycling is a value capture mechanism where public entities derive revenue to invest in new transportation infrastructure by leasing existing toll highway…