Jagchosis posted:

The federal government already subsidizes certain state and municipal bonds by allowing income gained by creditors from them to be tax exempt. The government could theoretically find other stealth tax breaks to encourage this kind of spending, but any kind would contribute to the deficit in the short term. This however is not sufficient for the kind of infrastructure spending America would need because states and municipalities still need to finance those bonds through taxes, which are generally politically unpopular. The federal government could of course do straight up fiscal transfers for spending on municipalities, like they did with the stimulus, but that contributes to the federal deficit which, again, is politically unpopular. Essentially the only way to make this kind of thing work is to convince the voters that investing in the future is worth it. Which would mean overcoming a Sisyphean mountain of shortsightedness in a country that cannot even agree that climate change is real or worth dealing with.