The nation needed it

As letters to the editor have pointed out, Rep. Steve Womack has attempted to justify his vote against the infrastructure bill in two ways. First, as I myself also wrote to Representative Womack, by representing it as a stalking horse for the Build Back Better legislation, he simply ignores the merit of the infrastructure bill itself as well as the fact that it was voted on standing alone. He has also criticized the bill by saying that it “is not paid for.”

Many, if not most, government programs are “not paid for” when they are instituted. Whether they are ever paid for depends on future government and economic events that cannot be foreseen at the time of their enactment (as well as interpretation of what has and has not been “paid for”). A better calculus is whether a program/legislation is something the country needs.

Either Representative Womack has forgotten his learning of recent economics or chooses to ignore it. John Maynard Keynes introduced the theory of government deficit spending in his monumental 1936 paper “Theory of Employment, Interest and Money.” Note that this was during the Great Depression. By the end of the ’30s, most Western economies has adopted its ideas. Again in the financial crisis of 2007-2008, these policies were used by the Obama administration to rescue American industry.

So please do not tell us that the infrastructure bill is not paid for. It is something the country desperately needs. Let us be forthright about our party loyalties and admit it when our voting is purely partisan.

RUSSELL BRASHER Fort Smith