A Reality Check For Americans On Infrastructure Weekend

“Generations from now, people will look back and know this is when America won the economic competition for the 21st Century,” Joe Biden declared, in a statement early Saturday after House lawmakers passed the bipartisan infrastructure bill.

The vote was 228-206. Only 13 Republicans supported the legislation. Liz Cheney was a “No.” Adam Kinzinger a “Yes.”

A half-dozen Democrats voted against it, including Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, Cori Bush and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who held a line Congressional Progressive Caucus chief Pramila Jayapal was ultimately unwilling to hold.

When the infrastructure bill came together earlier this year, Biden suggested he wouldn’t sign the legislation unless it came to his desk with the social spending plan. “If only one comes to me, I’m not — and if this is the only thing that comes to me, I’m not signing it,” he said, in late June, during remarks some Republicans framed as a betrayal.

Biden quickly softened his position to placate moderate Democrats. The result was an awkward commitment to what ended up being competing priorities.

That’s the irony of the Biden economic agenda. The legislation is theoretically complementary — two pillars atop which The White House’s vision for transformational change is constructed and realized. But by November, the two bills were battle flags hoisted by warring factions, moderates flying the roads and bridges and Progressives the social spending. Trench warfare galvanized the party against itself.

As the months wore on, Biden’s approval ratings fell, hurt by rising inflation, the perception of ineptitude created by intraparty intransigence and a botched exit from Afghanistan. America’s longest war ended as it began — with murdered innocents. Two decades after scores of Americans burned alive in Manhattan, a Reaper drone incinerated several children as they greeted their father in a small Kabul courtyard. The Pentagon later admitted to a tragic case of mistaken identity.

By October, Biden needed a win. Prior to last week’s trip overseas, he privately told Democrats that the midterms and, perhaps, his legacy, depended on the swift passage of his economic plan.

Nancy Pelosi, for all her powerbroker mystique, was unable to convince the Progressive Caucus to back the infrastructure deal without ironclad commitments from moderates around the larger, social spending package. By Friday, though, Biden was out of patience with Jayapal. So, she folded.

She didn’t frame it that way, of course. “Members of the Progressive Caucus and our colleagues in the Democratic Caucus reached an agreement to advance both pieces of President Biden’s legislative agenda,” she said, in a statement, adding that,

Our colleagues have committed to voting for the transformative Build Back Better Act, as currently written, no later than the week of November 15. As part of this agreement, at the request of the President, and to ensure we pass both bills through the House, progressives will advance the Infrastructure and Jobs Act.

Although the House did take a procedural step to advance the broader agenda, the bottom line was that Progressives were compelled to give up on the simultaneous delivery of Biden’s social spending plan. It’ll get a vote when everyone comes back from a short vacation and the Congressional Budget Office has a chance to score the $1.75 trillion tax and spend package.

Remember, it was Biden who emboldened Progressives to hold the line. The White House initially insisted the bills be passed together. In the end, only Bush, Tlaib, Pressley, Omar, Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman were willing to stand on that promise. “I cannot in good conscience support the infrastructure bill without voting on the President’s transformative agenda first,” Omar said.

Of course, “transformative” is something of a misnomer even in the context of the social spending legislation. What began as a $6 trillion moonshot proposal from Bernie Sanders ended up as a $1.75 trillion “framework,” gutted of critical initiatives and stripped of key programs, in order to pacify Joe Manchin (and his Maserati) who, as far as I’m aware anyway, still hadn’t committed to backing the outline when Jayapal finally let the House pass the roads and bridges plan.

When you think about the infrastructure bill, do note that the total amount of new spending is just $550 billion, to be delivered “mostly” over the next five years. So, a little over a $100 billion per year, on average. Elon Musk made more than that on paper in the first 10 months of 2021.

Although it pains me to say this, Biden’s characterization of the legislation is wildly overblown. In the same Saturday statement, he called the infrastructure bill “a monumental step forward as a nation.” Forget Musk or Jeff Bezos. The total amount of new spending is (far) less than the cost of 2008’s Wall Street bailout.

Biden commented on the social spending plan too. “I’m also proud that a rule was voted on that will allow for passage of my Build Back Better Act in the House of Representatives the week of November 15th,” he said, calling the bill “a once-in-a-generation investment in our people.”

The problem, though, is that as of early October, only 10% of “our people” knew what was in the original Build Back Better Act. That almost surely means the percentage apprised of what’s in Manchin’s SlimFast version is in the single-digits.

At some point, you’d think voters would tire of an ongoing charade that everywhere and always excuses failure by citing expediency and sacrifices principle at the altar of practicality. Apparently, there are just six US lawmakers not willing to make that sacrifice. Seven counting Sanders.

Worst of all, the one person with the kind of charisma necessary to reawaken the despondent masses is too busy “owning” social media detractors and orchestrating wildly hypocritical publicity stunts at the Met Gala to take the revolutionary mantle. Conservatives needn’t fret. Che Guevara she is not.


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4 thoughts on “A Reality Check For Americans On Infrastructure Weekend

  1. I woke up this AM thinking the Climate initiatives are really more infrastructure related than social spending related. It might be a smart tactic to separate them into a separate Bill and avoid the contentious arguments about Individuals or groups and their net value to Society based on what they produce vs what they consume.. The inherent divisiveness of those is arguments is in itself a one way ticket to nowhere. Just an idea even if it isn’t a cure for hate!! Wonder if the two party system can get to that way of thinking…??

    1. “Wonder if the two party system can get to that way of thinking…??”

      What can’t is the multi-party approach of the European bloc. Italy has essentially had 50 different governments since WWII. They can’t agree on much of anything. After one of Belgium’s latest elections the parties still hadn’t agreed on a new prime minister and cabinet more than year after the election, so no government at all. The fragmentation of multiple parties is often ridiculous. The problem with the two parties right now is that they have no interest in governing. The individuals in Congress have two priorities, #1 keep their jobs and the money they will get from those jobs and #2 win the right to tell us all what to do, no matter who it hurts, and all of them are willing to lie and cheat their way into power. Remember the core of the early founders were Puritans, the original control your life freaks. Until our representatives are stripped of the ability to profit from their jobs and wake up to their real responsibilities, our republic is inexorably headed to the crapper. If you have a chance to bet on the over/under of America lasting until 2100, bet the under, it’s a sure thing.

      1. Politics will continue to ebb and flow. Right now, we are trapped in a disinformation loop because many folks struggle to understand how disinformation (and misinformation) flow from the internet and social media. I do think we’ll see generations over time become more inoculated to these efforts as they grow up with it and as we continue to see the number of religious folks dwindle. 80 years will pass before we know it, but it’s difficult to see the long-term horizon because we all know we’re all dead in the long-term (unless of course, Zuck manages to make us immortal in the metaverse).

        As for the two-party system, it’s clear that one party takes the multi-party approach out of necessity because someone has to at least try to govern even if the efforts are doomed to failure since the other party just represents the wealthy donor class pulling the strings of a plurality of voters through culture wars and nationalism. Republicans will maintain their power for another decade or so due to the way the system is tilted in their favor before I think we’ll start getting actual transformative change that Bernie and AOC are hoping to accomplish. Change doesn’t happen by winning the war of ideas but rather the older generation dying out. What’s considered progressive today will be considered middle of the road politics by that point.

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