Joe Biden’s agenda depends on steering two trains at once

“INFRASTRUCTURE WEEK” was one of the triter gags of the Trump era: like Samuel Beckett’s Godot, it was perennially promised and never arrived. President Joe Biden’s go at infrastructure investment has started to acquire a similar feeling of interminability, with fitful progress and no legislative text since he announced his plans more than three months ago. Fidgety Democrats vow serious progress before Congress decamps for its August recess. On July 13th Chuck Schumer, their Senate leader, announced the headline cost of the mammoth package being prepared: $3.5trn. Delivering it will require deft and perfectly executed legislative manoeuvres.

Back in April, Mr Biden packaged his infrastructure ambitions differently. There were to be two parts. One piece of legislation would be devoted to “hard” infrastructure—such as roads, bridges, broadband fibre, and water pipes—and climate: building rehabilitation, an electric-vehicle charging network and other necessary investments that the private sector was poorly placed to make. The second portion was to be “human infrastructure” (the concept has acquired a certain plasticity in Democratic messaging). The striking components of this package included an expanded child benefit, universal pre-school, paid family leave, and hefty subsidies for child care and community college. The hard and the soft parts would each cost about $2trn, and would be just about paid for (the White House employed some artful accounting) by raising taxes on wealthy Americans and businesses, especially multinationals.