By ALAN FRAM and ZEKE MILLER, The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Saturday hailed Congress’ passage of his $1 trillion infrastructure package as a “monumental step forward for the nation” after fractious fellow Democrats resolved a months-long standoff in their ranks to seal the deal.
“Finally, infrastructure week,” a beaming Biden told reporters. “I’m so happy to say that: infrastructure week.”
The House passed the measure 228-206 late Friday, prompting prolonged cheers from the relieved Democratic side of the chamber. Thirteen Republicans, mostly moderates, supported the legislation while six of Democrats’ farthest left members opposed it.
Approval of the bill, which promises to create legions of jobs and improve broadband, water supplies and other public works, sends it to the desk of a president whose approval ratings have dropped and whose nervous party got a cold shoulder from voters in this past week’s off-year elections.
In this image from House Television, the vote total of 228-206 is displayed late Friday, Nov. 5, 2021, in Washington, as the House approves a $1 trillion package of road and other infrastructure projects after Democrats resolved a months-long standoff between progressives and moderates, notching a victory that President Joe Biden and his party had become increasingly anxious to claim.House Television via AP
Democratic candidates for governor were defeated in Virginia and squeaked through in New Jersey, two blue-leaning states. Those setbacks made party leaders — and moderates and liberals alike — impatient to produce impactful legislation and demonstrate they know how to govern. Democrats can ill afford to seem in disarray a year before midterm elections that could give Republicans congressional control.
Voters “want us to deliver,” Biden said, and Friday’s vote “proved we can.”
“On one big item, we delivered,” he added.
The infrastructure package is a historic investment by any measure, one that Biden compares in its breadth to the building of the interstate highway system in the last century or the transcontinental railroad the century before. He called it a “blue collar blueprint to rebuilding America.”
His reference to infrastructure week was a jab at his predecessor, Donald Trump, whose White House declared several times that “infrastructure week” had arrived, only for nothing to happen.
Simply freeing up the infrastructure measure for final congressional approval was like a burst of adrenaline for Democrats. Yet despite the win, Democrats endured a setback when they postponed a vote on a second, even larger bill until later this month.
That 10-year, $1.85 trillion measure bolstering health, family and climate change programs was sidetracked after moderates demanded a cost estimate on the measure from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The postponement dashed hopes that the day would produce a double-barreled win for Biden with passage of both bills.
But in an evening breakthrough brokered by Biden and House leaders, five moderates agreed to back that bill if the budget office’s estimates are consistent with preliminary numbers that White House and congressional tax analysts have provided. The agreement, in which lawmakers promised to vote on the social and environment bill by the week of Nov. 15, was a significant step toward a House vote that could ultimately ship it to the Senate.
Elated by the bill’s passage, Biden held forth with reporters for over a half hour Saturday morning, joking that his chances of getting the bill done had been written off multiple times, only for him to be able to salvage it. He said he would wait to hold a signing ceremony until lawmakers — Democrats and Republicans who voted for it — return to Washington after a week’s recess.
The president acknowledged uncertainty surrounding his larger social and environmental spending package, saying “time will tell” whether he can keep popular provisions like universal paid family leave in the final version. He wouldn’t say whether he has private assurances from moderate Democrats in the House and Senate to pass the nearly $2 trillion bill, but said he was “confident” he would get the votes.
Biden predicted Americans would begin to feel the impact of the infrastructure bill “probably starting within the next two to three months as we get shovels in the ground.” But the full impact will probably take decades to be fully realized.
He added that he would visit some ports that would benefit from the legislation in the next week, as his administration tries frantically to ease supply chain disruptions that are raising prices on consumer goods before the holidays.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said there’s a pent-up demand to get going on public works. He told CNN he’s already got $10 billion worth of applications for a certain program that’s only got $1 billion in it. “This is not just a short term stimulus bill.”
Biden said the investment would be viewed in 50 years as “When America decided to win the competition of the 21st century” with a rising China.