Infrastructure Bill Passes Congress

Photo by Office of the President of the United States, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

After a long, hot summer of legislative machination and a fall full of angst and congressional consternation, the bipartisan infrastructure package is through. If you forgot, or like almost all of the congress critters that voted for it never have read what is in the infrastructure bill, you can read it for yourself here:

Washington Post:

House lawmakers late Friday adopted a roughly $1.2 trillion measure to improve the country’s roads, bridges, pipes, ports and Internet connections, overcoming their own internecine divides to secure a long-sought burst in federal investment and deliver President Biden a major legislative win.

The bipartisan 228-to-206 vote marked the final milestone for the first of two pieces in the president’s sprawling economic agenda. The outcome sends to Biden’s desk an initiative that promises to deliver its benefits to all 50 states, a manifestation of his 2020 campaign pledge to rejuvenate the economy in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic and “build back better.”

Here’s what’s in the $1.2 trillion infrastructure package

The path to passage proved littered with political conflict, pushing to the limits a fractious party with still-widening ideological fissures. Democrats initially hoped to approve the infrastructure bill on Friday along with a separate, roughly $2 trillion proposal to overhaul the nation’s health care, education, immigration, climate and tax laws. Doing so would have advanced two spending initiatives that have been stalled on Capitol Hill for months.

Instead, House Democrats started only to debate, but did not finalize, the $2 trillion tax-and-spending package. Facing new delays, that bill remained bogged down in the broader war between liberals, who are eager to spend now that they are in the majority, and moderates, who continue to question the fiscal impacts of the bill.

In the end, it was a bipartisan coalition of Democrats with the aid of 13 Republicans that helped propel the infrastructure proposal to passage. When the gavel sounded after 11 p.m., cheers erupted from a mass of members who had crowded around House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). They shared high fives and fist bumps with each other to cap off a tumultuous night.

“Generations from now, people will look back and know this is when America won the economic competition for the 21st Century,” Biden said in a statement lauding its passage.

All due respect to the president, but with focus in Washington immediately swinging to the budget reconciliation project, he’ll be lucky if this infrastructure bill is at the fore of folks’ minds come Monday, let alone a generation from now. Other than the numbers with dollar signs in front that will be touted in campaign ad graphics in next year’s midterm elections — which is why there was little doubt some kind of infrastructure bill was going to pass — I doubt this will be all that memorable. The infrastructure bill was supposed to be the easy legislative win for the Biden administration that really needs a legislative win. With a healthy 69-to-30 approval from the United States Senate, it should have been. But the bipartisan measure was coupled with the massive and complicated budget reconciliation effort and became leverage for all sides.

In the end, it passed. Moderates gave a little, the most vocal of progressive critics had enough cover to lodge their protest vote, Speaker Pelosi got it done, President Biden gets a badly needed political and optical W, and now the focus moves on to the budget reconciliation.

But, to preempt “Dems in disarray!” stories after Team Blue gets a win, one little tidbit to keep your eye on going forward — Minority Leader and wannabe Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy has some leakage he couldn’t stop:

Goodness gracious — 13 Republican yes votes.

katko
bacon
van drew
young
upton
kinzinger
gonzales
reed
smith
garbarino
Malliatokis
Fitzpatrick

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) November 6, 2021

Now a few of those are folks retiring/not running and holding a grudge, but not a good sign for someone who, last time he tried to be Speaker of the House, was so revolting to the caucus the GOP offered Paul Ryan everything but their firstborns to prevent it. McCarthy isn’t well liked, isn’t particularly respected, and very well might have a challenger should the Republican Party take the majority back in the people’s house.

Stay tuned. And enjoy Infrastructure Weekend. We do this again come Monday.