Democrats are on a fast track to push as many liberal policies through as they can they can before next year’s midterm elections when many political pundits are predicting they could lose power in the U.S. House and possibly the Senate.

The blitz was evident last week when the Senate began working on passage of President Joe Biden’s massive multi-trillion-dollar “human infrastructure” measure just minutes after the House approved a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill. Sen. Chuck Schumer immediately called for a procedural vote to begin debate on the measure, which passed along party lines 50-49.

Infrastructure has been commonly understood to mean projects like roads and bridges, but conservatives have warned that in Biden’s budget-busting $2.25 trillion plan, only a fraction of those dollars would be spent on traditional road and bridge projects. Disguised under “human infrastructure, the Biden plan would actually represent the biggest tax increase and the greatest federal power grab in decades.

“Today, the Senate voted to advance a trillion-dollar bill that spends just one-tenth of its total on roads and bridges while funding ‘digital equity,’ dysfunctional Amtrak systems, ‘green’ subsidies, and more,” Jessica Anderson, Heritage Action executive director, said in a statement. “And as last week’s CBO report shows, and as conservatives predicted, the bill is not paid for and instead increases the deficit by more than a quarter trillion dollars.”

The congressional Republican Study Committee labeled it a “Trojan horse” for Democratic social spending and “Green New Deal” initiatives. Strong conservative voices like Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana and Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri, Ted Cruz of Texas and Bill Hagerty of Tennessee warn that the trillions in new taxes necessary to fund a spending plan of this size would cripple the American economy, just as the nation is trying to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

In an impassioned floor speech in the Senate, Cruz stated that the $1.2 trillion infrastructure package partnered with the $3.5 trillion Democrat wish list represent a trap that will fuel massive inflation.

Just a few days later the Cruz warning proved prophetic. According to the Labor Department, producer prices accelerated at the fastest annual pace on record in July as supply chain disruptions and materials shortages continued to put upward pressure on costs. The year-over-year increase in core prices was the largest since the data series began in August 2014.

Cruz gave the inflation numbers some perspective in his Senate speech. He said it took the United States government $4.1 trillion to win World War II but Democrats have more than doubled that spending mark in just the last seven months.

Average citizens might not understand the kind of midnight deal-making that goes on in the halls of Congress but they are very aware of issues affecting their pocketbooks.

Cruz said that when families across the country have already noticed how much the costs for groceries, lumber and gasoline have escalated and with the Democrats’ lack of control spending on “infrastructure,” things are on a fast track to get much worse.

The senator explained how the inflationary policies fostered by the Democrats are crippling the nation. Democrats have long argued that the tax increase would be borne by businesses and the rich, but Cruz said that raising taxes on businesses hurts all Americans, especially poor and working families. Taxes not only affect working men and women but anyone with a fixed income, including the millions of seniors across this country on Social Security who are struggling to make ends meet.

As lawmakers began deliberation on the legislation, other conservatives, including Hawley, Rep. Jim Banks and former President Donald Trump likened the bipartisan infrastructure bill to the “beginning of the Green New Deal.”

Hawley called the Democratic spending measure a woke, leftist bill that is full of left-wing politics.

“Woke politics. Like gender-identity mandates and a potential gender-identity cause of action against nonprofits in this country and a racial-equity mandate, and the Green New Deal. All of that is in this bill,” Hawley stated.

A memo to colleagues from Rep. Banks warned that the plan “builds on the Green New Deal plan to replace air travel with trains” and would “help fulfill the vision” of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez by massively expanding Amtrak while eliminating its accountability to taxpayers.

“This is not an infrastructure bill, this is the beginning of the Green New Deal,” Trump said in an email. “The bill I proposed, which Mitch McConnell couldn’t do anything with, was pure infrastructure. I want what is best for America, not what’s best for the Communist Democrat Party. This will be a big victory for the Democrats and will be used against Republicans in the upcoming elections.”

Beware of Democratic word games that promote deception. A number of studies and reports are cited or authorized in the plan. The word “study,” in fact, appears more than 300 times in the legislation and the word “report” appears more than 500 times.

The biggest word deception is the name itself - human Infrastructure. It may sound pleasing to the ears, but as conservative voices are warning, the Democrats’ plan is filled with false promises of “free” benefits that are only possible through increased costs for working Americans.

As Sen. Cruz stated in his speech on the Senate floor, the legislation proposed by Democrats won’t build much infrastructure, but it will build a bigger swamp in Washington and drag us closer to the downward spiral of central planning and socialism that we must avoid if we ever want America to be America again.

By Jim Zbick | tneditor@tnonline.com

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.