The Patriot Post® · New 'Infrastructure' Law Is a Windfall for Race-Baiters

After months of Democrat Party infighting prevented the passage of the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, Americans now have 13 Republicans to thank (or blame) for getting the massive pork-filled boondoggle to Joe Biden’s desk. The new infrastructure law does allocate some money for physical infrastructure, but it also creates a multibillion-dollar slush fund for Biden and Democrats to spend on leftist special interests.

Proponents of that special interest agenda, for example, are deeply committed to promoting and applying Critical Race Theory, which the Biden administration will use to justify its every spending decision. This reality was brought home this week when Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg contended that roads are racist.

When questioned as to where this massive slush fund will be spent, Buttigieg answered with a race-based screed: “As to where we target those dollars, you know, I’m still surprised that some people were surprised that when I pointed to the fact that if a highway was built for the purpose of dividing a white and a black neighborhood, or if an underpass was constructed such that a bus carrying mostly black and Puerto Rican kids to a beach or would have been in New York was designed too low for it to pass by, that that obviously reflects racism that went into those design choices. … I don’t think we have anything to lose by confronting that simple reality. And I think we have everything to gain by acknowledging it and then dealing with it. Which is why the reconnecting communities, that billion dollars is something we want to get to work right away.”

The trouble is, like Nikole Hannah-Jones’s 1619 Project, Buttigieg’s injection of racism into the nation’s past city planning and building projects is not about giving an honest or accurate history but about selling a politically contrived and dubious caricature of the past in order to justify spending billions in taxpayer money on leftist special interests. In fact, Buttigieg’s own example, based on Robert Caro’s biography of New York City planner Robert Moses, is a myth.

But even if Buttigieg’s historical reference to past motives was true, the pertinent question now is this: Is it true today? Do these roads and bridges currently prevent minorities from accessing anything? Furthermore, does public transportation only serve minorities? Are there black buses and white buses, and are black buses built intentionally taller than white buses so as to not be able to access roads with low overpasses?

Rather than righting wrongs, Buttigieg and these woke leftists are in fact doing just the opposite. He’s looking for excuses to justify the Biden administration’s intentions to use American taxpayer money inequitably, to justify their intention to redistribute wealth in order to pick winners and losers. Race is one of their primary determiners.

Paul MIrengoff also observes Buttigieg’s motive behind this “past transportation inequities” claim: “I’m pretty sure that Buttigieg, who was unable to gain any traction with African-American voters in 2019-20, will use the fund aggressively and discriminatorily, in the hope of improving his image with these voters in case he runs for office again.”