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I was doing exercises from great blue textbook when I met the difficult one. Please, explain me the difference between usage infinitive and present infinitive in passive voice.

Foe example: Do you think that more money should be spent on education.

Why can’t we use perfect infinitive in this example?

Another one:

This road is in very bad condition. It should have been repaired a long time ago.

Does it wrong to use be repaired in this example?

Thank you!

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    The road should have been repaired a long time ago (Past tense). The road should be repaired as soon as possible (Present tense).
    – Kate Bunting
    Sep 2, 2018 at 17:52
  • @Kate 'should be repaired', isn't that some weird future conditional? Sep 2, 2018 at 19:43

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With should, the past infinitive makes it counter-factual

"It should be repaired" is making a demand for the future, and says nothing about the past.

"It should have been repaired" is saying that it has not been repaired, and this was wrong. It does not specifically demand anything for the future: the speaker might still wish this, or it may now be too late to do anything.

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