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The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is 2,702 pages long and comes with a price tag of $1.2 trillion.
There's no way the swamp monsters in Washington who are slapping this thing together have a clue about all the spending in it. But since they are so careless about your taxpayer dollars, here are seven of the most eyebrow raising items the American people will soon be funding.
1. Breathalyzers
The infrastructure bill requires the secretary of transportation to issue a standard “that requires passenger motor vehicles manufactured after the effective date of such standard to be equipped with advanced drunk driving prevention technology.”
The secretary of transportation will be required to “work directly with manufacturers of passenger motor vehicles, suppliers, safety advocates, and other interested parties” to develop breathalyzers for motor vehicles.
Since cars drive on roads, this counts as infrastructure? Or something?
2. Diversity Recruitment
What could this have to do with infrastructure? We don't know either, but in the bill it notes that from 2023 to 2026 The Department of Transportation will receive $20 million to increase “awareness of career opportunities in the transportation sector” and “diversity, including race, gender, ethnicity, veteran status, and socioeconomic status, of professionals in the transportation sector.”
3. Amtrak upgrades in... Canada!
Were not making this up. Apparently Washington thinks improving railways in our neighbor to the north is what U.S. tax dollars should go toward.
Infrastructure!
4. 3.5 billion for India Healthcare
Bloomberg reported in June that India has big plans to boost their health infrastructure, and apparently our tax money is going to be a part of that effort.
At least this could count as infrastructure, even though it's in another country.
5. Studies on smoking marijuana and driving
Ok, so driving is infrastructure. No one should be driving impaired on weed or anything else.
Oh what the hell, here's what the outlet "Marijuana Moment" has to say about it this week.
"Senate leaders released a massive and long-anticipated infrastructure bill late on Sunday—and after weeks of bipartisan negotiations, the legislation includes provisions that aim to allow researchers to study the actual marijuana that consumers are purchasing from state-legal dispensaries instead of having to use only government-grown cannabis," Marijuana Moment reported.
"The bill also encourages states that have enacted legalization laws to educate people about impaired driving," the outlet noted. "The language on scientists’ access to retail cannabis products was attached to an earlier version of infrastructure legislation in a Senate committee, and it’s substantively the same as a provision included in a House-passed infrastructure bill."
6. $2.5 billion for green energy in schools
Everything is infrastructure, apparently, as $2.5 billion will go to subsidies to "green" schools. Some on the left are trying to pass green energy and other non-infrastructure items as "soft" or "social" infrastructure.
7. $350 million for Wildlife Crossings
Yes it is exactly what it sounds like. Bridges for animals. As if the comings and goings of animals in the woods has anything to do with infrastructure, which you take for granted that it should be human-centric.
As if an animal in the woods would even know it needs to take a bridge somewhere!
So there you have it. Seven of the craziest ways Washington is about to waste our money on things that have nothing to do with infrastructure in a monster infrastructure bill.
Sadly, there are far more than just seven of these examples. These are just the wackiest ones we came across first.
Investigate further at your own mental peril.