REHOBOTH BEACH, DE, Nov 8 (BUS): President Joe Biden needs to look no further than his time as Vice President to understand the challenges that lie ahead in promoting his new trillion-dollar infrastructure deal to the American people and getting money out the door quickly. Enough to feel the real effect.
When President Barack Obama pushed through a giant stimulus bill in 2009, his administration faced criticism that the money was too slow to make its way into the stagnant economy, and Obama himself later admitted he had failed to sell Americans the benefits of the legislation. , The Associated Press (AP) reports.
Obama said in 2012 that his biggest mistake was thinking that the job of the presidency was “only about getting politics right” — rather than telling “a story to the American people that gives them a sense of unity and purpose.”
Biden began his own efforts to craft such a story when he took a winning run Saturday after his infrastructure bill passed Congress, securing a hard-fought victory in $1.2 trillion legislation he says will measurably improve Americans’ lives in months. and years to come.
The president called it a “once-in-a-generation investment” to tackle a host of challenges — crumbling roads and bridges, gaps in affordable internet access, water contaminated with lead pipes, and homes and cities unprepared to deal with them. Increasing frequency of extreme weather conditions.
With the end of a particularly difficult week in which his party suffered surprising losses in elections across the country, the passage of the legislation marked a respite from a difficult few months for a beleaguered president whose poll numbers have fallen as Americans remain frustrated with the coronavirus pandemic and an uneven economic recovery.
But the legislative victory poses a series of challenges for Biden, both in promoting the New Deal and at the same time continuing to push for a long-disputed Social Safety Net and Climate Bill of over $1.85 trillion, which would significantly expand health and family. and climate change programmes.
The risks that Biden faces are evident in the low poll numbers.
Priorities USA, a major Democratic financial group, warned in a memo last week that “voters are frustrated, skeptical, and tired — from COVID, economic hardship, school closures, rising prices and stagnant wages, unaffordable prescription drugs and health care.” And more.”
“Without results (and effective reporting of those results), the ruling party will be punished by voters,” said Jay Cecil, chairman of the board.
While polls widely indicate that Americans support the infrastructure package, some indicate that the nation remains unsure of what it includes. About half of adults surveyed in a September Pew Research Center survey said they would prefer an infrastructure bill, but just over a quarter said they were unsure about it.
In an effort to correct the errors of earlier messages, the White House is planning a strong sales campaign for the infrastructure bill, with Biden planning trips across the United States to speak about the legislation’s effects.
He’ll visit a port in Baltimore on Wednesday and promise an impressive signing ceremony for an infrastructure bill when lawmakers return to the city.
The department also deploys the heads of the Departments of Transportation, Energy, Interior, and Commerce, as well as an EPA official and senior White House aides to speak about the bill in national and local media, the African American press, and the Spanish language. They are putting clarifications across administrations’ digital platforms to help Americans better understand what’s on the bill.
But even as White House officials talk about what’s in the bill, they will also have to ensure the money is spent. It’s a challenge Biden is familiar with, having overseen the implementation of the 2009 stimulus plan as vice president. Then, despite promises to prioritize “shovel-ready projects,” challenges with permits and other issues led to delays, leading Obama to joke in 2011 that “shovel-ready projects weren’t quite as ready as we expected.”
Democrats at the time felt the party had not done enough to remind Americans of how to improve their lives, and eventually allowed Republicans to frame the electoral conversation around government overreach. The following year, the Democrats faced heavy losses in the midterm elections, losing control of the House of Representatives and a handful of seats in the Senate.
For his part, Biden insisted on Saturday that Americans could begin to see the effects of the infrastructure bill in as little as two to three months. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg gave the tour promising that some projects are just waiting for funding, but others, such as investments in new electric car chargers and efforts to reconnect communities divided by highways, will take longer. In contrast to the 2009 stimulus, Buttigieg told NPR, Biden’s infrastructure bill is “both for the short and long term.”
“There will be work right away, and for years to come,” he said.
While he sells the infrastructure bill as evidence that Democrats can deliver, Biden still has to grapple with ongoing disagreement over the other big item on his agenda – the Social Spending Act.
Unlike the infrastructure bill, which passed with the support of 19 Republicans in the Senate, the social spending package faces opposition from a united Republican, meaning Biden will need every Democratic vote in the Senate to cross the finish line. With the party’s moderate and progressive factions wrangling over details of the final bill, and two centrist opponents—Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kirsten Sinema of Arizona—disputing many of the major progressive priorities, winning the final passage of the second part of his bill. The agenda may be a much more difficult puzzle to solve.
“Everyone agreed on the infrastructure. You can always agree on whether or not you’re going to build roads and bridges, create the water and sanitation you need, fix railroads and private ports,” Representative Jim Claiburn, DS.C., said on “Fox News Sunday.” your.
“It’s another thing again when you start getting into new things,” Claiborne said.
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