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Infrastructure Week is Finally Here!
Aug. 11th, 2021 08:55 amThe Senate on Tuesday passed a $1.1 trillion plan for investing in America's infrastructure. It contains spending for everything from the relatively obvious traditional infrastructure such as crumbling roads and bridges, aging rail and transit systems, and crowded ports and airports; to less traditionally thought-of infrastructure such as getting broadband Internet to poor people who don't have access to it today. The bill needs to be approved in the House, then will go to President Biden for signature. Example news coverage: AP News article 10 Aug 2021, CNN.com article 10 Aug 2021.
This action in the Senate is a long time coming. In the 2016 presidential campaign candidate Donald Trump promised massive investment in America's infrastructure, mirroring a promise by candidate Hillary Clinton. With both candidates, and presumably both parties, behind it it seemed like a bipartisan sure thing. During Trump's presidency, though, it became obvious that infrastructure, like so many things in Trumpworld, was simply a talking point, not an action point.
"Infrastructure Week" became a running joke during the Trump administration. Trump repeated his infrastructure promise countless times as president. "Infrastructure Week" was seemingly always next week, though, as he never showed any interest in actual policy, just 3-second sound bites and angry tweets. Moreover, Republicans in Congress, who for Trump's first two years in office controlled both the House and the Senate, never offered an infrastructure bill nor acted on proposals being made by Democrat minority members.
Now with Democrat President Biden in office and (slim) Democrat majorities in both the House and Senate, we finally get an infrastructure bill. And it's even gotten bipartisan support in the Senate. In a vote of 69-30, nineteen Republicans crossed party lines to vote for it.
Don't mistake that this is really a Republican priority, though. Republican leadership has been quite transparent that these 19 yea votes were strictly a political calculation. They voted on a bill they thought was watered down as much as possible yet just good enough for Democrats to blunt their willingness to eliminate the filibuster rule in the Senate. If the filibuster were eliminated Dems would be able to pass a much larger bill— their original proposal was over $3 trillion— with a simple majority vote. Indeed you'll note, because people like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell tell you, the 19 yea votes were all from senators not facing reelection next year. Republicans know they can't sell this bill to their base, because the Republican party doesn't actually want new spending or programs, even for publicly popular infrastructure, so they have their members facing the least reelection risk take the hit now to avoid larger losses later.
Oh, and Donald Trump, who kept promising "Infrastructure Week" during his presidency? He's released almost daily press releases (no longer tweets since he's banned from Twitter) savaging this bill and the Republicans who voted in favor of it. That just shows it was never about doing anything for infrastructure, it's only ever been about getting favorable headlines in the right-wing press.
This action in the Senate is a long time coming. In the 2016 presidential campaign candidate Donald Trump promised massive investment in America's infrastructure, mirroring a promise by candidate Hillary Clinton. With both candidates, and presumably both parties, behind it it seemed like a bipartisan sure thing. During Trump's presidency, though, it became obvious that infrastructure, like so many things in Trumpworld, was simply a talking point, not an action point.
"Infrastructure Week" became a running joke during the Trump administration. Trump repeated his infrastructure promise countless times as president. "Infrastructure Week" was seemingly always next week, though, as he never showed any interest in actual policy, just 3-second sound bites and angry tweets. Moreover, Republicans in Congress, who for Trump's first two years in office controlled both the House and the Senate, never offered an infrastructure bill nor acted on proposals being made by Democrat minority members.
Now with Democrat President Biden in office and (slim) Democrat majorities in both the House and Senate, we finally get an infrastructure bill. And it's even gotten bipartisan support in the Senate. In a vote of 69-30, nineteen Republicans crossed party lines to vote for it.
Don't mistake that this is really a Republican priority, though. Republican leadership has been quite transparent that these 19 yea votes were strictly a political calculation. They voted on a bill they thought was watered down as much as possible yet just good enough for Democrats to blunt their willingness to eliminate the filibuster rule in the Senate. If the filibuster were eliminated Dems would be able to pass a much larger bill— their original proposal was over $3 trillion— with a simple majority vote. Indeed you'll note, because people like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell tell you, the 19 yea votes were all from senators not facing reelection next year. Republicans know they can't sell this bill to their base, because the Republican party doesn't actually want new spending or programs, even for publicly popular infrastructure, so they have their members facing the least reelection risk take the hit now to avoid larger losses later.
Oh, and Donald Trump, who kept promising "Infrastructure Week" during his presidency? He's released almost daily press releases (no longer tweets since he's banned from Twitter) savaging this bill and the Republicans who voted in favor of it. That just shows it was never about doing anything for infrastructure, it's only ever been about getting favorable headlines in the right-wing press.
