Biden’s Approach To ‘Infrastructure’ Might End Up Dooming Both Bills
Michael Cantrell
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The White House’s current decision to try pushing twin infrastructure packages could end up sabotaging the possibility that either one of these plans ends up getting passed.
President Joe Biden recently revealed his $2.25 trillion “American Jobs Plan” in Pittsburgh last week, along with a massive corporate tax hike as officials in the administration said that another big spending bill was on the way.
But the White House’s decision to divide the packages, bundled together as part of the “Build Back Better” infrastructure platform on which Biden campaigned, so far is confusing lawmakers, lobbyists, and experts alike. The president’s generous “infrastructure” definition not only means he has plenty of what Republicans see as poison pill spending but also a tougher pitch to voters.
The White House’s bifurcated approach to infrastructure amounts to “new territory,” according to Michele Nellenbach, the Bipartisan Policy Center’s strategic initiatives vice president.
Biden’s second package, marketed as his “American Families Plan,” is better described as the president’s social agenda, she said. But even his first proposal, the “American Jobs Plan,” veers out of the traditional infrastructure policy lane, with its investments in research and development and workforce measures.
Nellenbach predicted the second package would be harder for Congress to pass, given indications it will be laden with policy priorities Republicans oppose, such as lowering the Medicare eligibility age, free community college, and universal pre-kindergarten. Assumptions the plans were split to silo more divisive liberal policies from more traditional infrastructure ones so at least one of the proposals could become law are “probably right,” she said.
“Although Congress is on its own path, so it’s not clear to me how exactly they incorporate what the administration is proposing,” she said during a chat with the Washington Examiner. “What isn’t clear is what the Republicans do when you get into the pay-for conversation, and how expansive do those conversations become? Is that when you start to bring in the social infrastructure questions? Because that’s where you’ll lose the Republicans.”
“If we can have two separate conversations, if you can have one that sort of focuses on this typical bipartisan infrastructure path and allow them to go through regular order, and allow them to work together and do that, that’s one thing,” she went on to say. “But if you start to bring in some of those other issues that the president has put in these proposals, then you start to lose the bipartisanship.”
Well, if we’re being honest here, these pieces of legislation aren’t about infrastructure. They are about getting wish list items from the Democratic Party rammed through Congress. Period.
If you look at these massive things, you’ll find all kinds of little tidbits of socialism embedded deep within its pages. Democrats know that the vast majority of Americans are opposed to socialism, so they are trying to sneak it in. However, we aren’t as stupid as they think we are.
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