Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better

by Jennifer Pahlka

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, signed into law by President Biden in November 2021, provides over a trillion dollars, most of it in grants to state and local governments, but for local officials to access this capital they have to sort through almost four hundred separate grant application processes. Many are concerned that the communities that need these funds most will be the least likely to receive them. About $80 billion of the total is supposed to go to upgrading water systems, including drinking-water systems in places like Flint, Michigan, and Jackson, Mississippi, but a study of $25 billion granted for these purposes in the past decade found that small communities and communities with larger minority populations are less likely to receive assistance.11