Biden hopes to turn political fortunes around with infrastructure bill

Comes amid months of rough headlines and tumbling approval ratings.

President Joe Biden, with Vice President Kamala Harris and Heather Kurtenbach, with Iron Workers Local 86 in Seattle, arrives to speak before signing the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill into law during a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Monday, Nov. 15, 2021. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) (AP)

President Joe Biden signed his bipartisan infrastructure legislation to show that his administration can still accomplish major goals despite months of rough headlines.

Members of both parties, including retiring Republican Sen Rob Portman of Ohio, Sen Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi, touted Washington’s ability to solve major problems on Monday at an outdoor signing event as brisk autumn air took hold in the nation’s capital.

“The bill I’m about to sign into law is proof that, despite the cynics, Democrats and Republicans can come together and deliver results,” the president said. He also hailed the ability of Republicans who negotiated with the White House and thanked Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for voting for the legislation.

“I truly believe that 50 years from now, historians are going look back at this moment and say ‘That’s the moment America began to win the competition of the 21st century,” he said.

The bill’s passage comes after months of negative headlines that began in earnest after Mr Biden’s proposed exit from Afghanistan led to the nation falling to the Taliban quicker than expected. While this month’s jobs numbers showed the economy headed toward recovery, consumer confidence has dropped. Inflation has been on the rise, with consumer prices increasing 6.2 per cent compared to last year.

All this has led Mr Biden’s approval rating to tumble down to 41 per cent, according to a new poll from The Washington Post and ABC News. Meanwhile, 53 per cent of voters say they disapprove of Mr Biden’s performance. It’s bad news for Mr Biden a year out from the 2022 midterms: 46 per cent of adults polled said they would support a Republican candidate for Congress, compared to 43 percent of voters, who said they would vote for a Democratic candidate. The poor numbers were compounded by Republicans winning the governorship in Virginia for the first time since 2009.

The infrastructure bill signing is also only the culmination of half of Mr Biden’s domestic agenda. Initially, Democrats planned to pass the bipartisan bill in tandem with a larger social welfare bill that includes provisions to combat the climate crisis, provide child care, an expanded child tax credit and home care for elderly people and people with disabilities.

Democrats hoped to pass that bill through a process called budget reconciliation that would allow the Senate to pass it with all 50 Democratic senators plus Vice President Kamala Harris as a way to sidestep a GOP filibuster.

Former Sen Doug Jones of Alabama, who lost his race last year to Republican Tommy Tuberville, told The Independent the infrastructure bill being signed into law could be a boost for the president.

“Can’t help but improve it,” he said. “This is a big deal.”

Rep Haley Stevens, a Democrat from a swing district in Michigan, said she would campaign on the bill.

“I think passing the infrastructure bill builds trust, it gives certainty,” she said. “It paints a picture for the future we’re gonna live in and yeah, I’m excited to run on it.”

But a handful of House moderates’ objections to passing the legislation without a score from the Congressional Budget Office led to House Democrats passing the bipartisan legislation that had passed the Senate in August and instead passing a rule to govern floor debate on the reconciliation bill, sometimes called the Build Back Better Bill. That led to six progressive Democrats – all members of the Squad such as Reps Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman of New York, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Cori Bush of Missouri and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota – voting against the bipartisan bill despite 13 House Republicans voting for it.

Vice President Harris said that the bill signed on Monday was just the start.

“This bill, as significant as it is, as historic as it is, is part one of two,” she said. “To lower costs and cut taxes for working families, to tackle the climate crisis at its core, Congress must also pass the Build Back Better Act.”

But significant challenges remain for getting the bill across the finish line. The moderates’ pledge to vote for the bill this week came with the significant caveat that the score from the CBO must be “consistent with the toplines for tax revenue and spending in the White House’s initial $1.75 trillion framework for the Build Back Better bill.

Similarly, there remain significant unresolved aspects of the bill, such as whether to include paid family leave. Democratic Sen Joe Manchin of West Virginia has objected to including it in the legislation, which led to paid leave being excluded from the White House’s initial framework, much to the objection of many Democrats, including many female members in both the House and Senate. In response, Ms Pelosi put paid leave back in the legislation.

In addition, the House and Senate have significant work outside of the Build Back Better legislation. The country is set to reach the debt limit and faces a potential shutdown on 3 December.

“We’re busy as a legislature and my sleeves are rolled up,” Ms Stevens said. “We do and deliver in this and we’re not resting an inch because the American voted in last November a new president of the United States with a vision and everything we’ve been working on.”