Hillary Clinton’s Budget Blowout

Hillary Clinton seems to be in a race with Bernie Sanders to see who can spend and borrow the most taxpayer money. These days that’s how you win the Democratic nomination for president. So far Hillary’s losing the spendfest. But she’s catching up.

Hillary has just endorsed a $275 billion proposal for public works projects. No word yet as to whether these are “shovel ready.” But what is certain is that the proposal makes the unions and the construction lobby mighty happy.

Never mind that Barack Obama was supposed to have already solved the infrastructure crisis when just a few years ago he spent hundreds of billions of dollars of “stimulus” funds on roads, bridges, green energy projects and the like. In the next few weeks Congress is expected to approve one of the biggest transportation bills in history.

The former secretary of state’s advocacy of infrastructure programs sounds a little hollow given that it comes only a few weeks after she announced her opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline project that would create thousands of mostly-union high paying construction jobs without costing taxpayers a thin dime. But that policy apparently contributes to climate change, so no go. Um, Ms. Clinton, it takes energy to build roads.

The bigger conundrum for Hillary is how al of these construction projects are going to be paid for. Her infrastructure plan is on top of her $350 billion “college affordability” initiative, and her call for a new early childhood education program, and her support for a doubling of funding for head start. The combined price tag for all this is about $700 billion over five years.