The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that the infrastructure bill will add about $400 billion to federal debt.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released an analysis of the infrastructure bill that is winding its way through Capitol Hill.

Congress is considering a $550 billion increase in federal infrastructure subsidies. The subsidies and related new regulations will be damaging for many reasons, as Randal O’Toole and I have noted.

As Politico observed last month, House Democrats sought to include several anti-highway provisions in an infrastructure bill, including a “fix-it-first” requirement that would prevent states from adding new highway capacity if some of the roads in the state were in poor condition.

The Senate reportedly passed an infrastructure bill last week, but it was really only a four‐page outline of the bill. Supporters hope that the actual bill will pass this week.

Federal student loans are having a moment, and not a good one.

In 1990, a Department of Transportation researcher named Don Pickrell looked at ten rail transit projects completed in the 1980s and found that their construction costs averaged 62 percent more than originally projected, their operating costs were 130 percent more, and their ridership was 47 percent less than projected.

Everyone is talking about inflation, but what is it?

Transit ridership was only 42 percent of pre‐pandemic levels in May 2021, which is making transit agencies desperate to justify their future existence and the subsidies they depend on to keep running.

“More highway spending won’t rev up the economy,” argues a recent article in the Wall Street Journal.