Tag Archives: $1 trillion infrastructure bill

Biden, needing a boost, to sign $1 trillion infrastructure bill

By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -In need of a political boost, President Joe Biden will sign a $1 trillion infrastructure bill on Monday at a ceremony expected to draw Democrats and some Republicans who were instrumental in getting the legislation passed.

The measure is expected to create jobs across the country by dispersing billions of dollars to state and local governments to fix crumbling bridges and roads, and expanding broadband internet access to millions of Americans.

The White House said on Sunday that Biden named former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu to supervise implementation of the infrastructure effort.

In addition, Biden signed an executive order before the ceremony directing that materials made in the United States will be given priority in infrastructure projects, the White House said. It also established a task force made up of top Cabinet officials to guide implementation of the legislation.

The ceremony, scheduled to be held on the White House South Lawn to accommodate a big crowd, represents an increasingly rare case where members of both parties are willing to stand together and celebrate a bipartisan achievement.

The bill had become a partisan lightning rod, with Republicans complaining that Democrats who control the House of Representatives delayed its passage to ensure party support for Biden’s $1.75 trillion social policy and climate change legislation, which Republicans reject.

The 13 House Republicans who broke ranks with their party to support the measure have been targeted by former President Donald Trump and some of their own colleagues.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who voted in favor of the bill, told Louisville, Kentucky’s WHAS radio last week that he was not attending the signing ceremony because he has “other things I’ve got to do.”

The phrase “infrastructure week” became a Washington punch line during Trump’s four years in the White House, when plans to focus on investments in America’s roads, railways and other transportation were repeatedly derailed.

Now it is Biden who needs some positive momentum as he struggles to address rising inflation and high gasoline prices that have contributed to a drop in his job approval ratings. The Democratic president and his party are eager to show they can move forward on his agenda ahead of the November 2022 midterm elections when Republicans will seek to regain control of both chambers of Congress.

INFLATION CONCERNS

U.S. consumer prices last week posted their biggest annual gain in 31 years, driven by surges in the cost of gasoline and other goods. Republicans have pounced on inflation worries, arguing that the increase reflects Biden’s sweeping spending agenda.

Biden’s economic advisers defended his policies on Sunday, saying rising inflation was a global issue related to the COVID-19 pandemic, not a result of the administration’s programs.

“There’s no doubt inflation is high right now. It’s affecting Americans’ pocketbooks. It’s affecting their outlook,” Brian Deese, director of the White House National Economic Council, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “But it’s important that we put this in context. When the president took office, we were facing an all-out economic crisis.”

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Deese said in separate television appearances that they expect the infrastructure legislation, as well as the $1.75 trillion “Build Back Better” bill, to help bring down inflation.

The “Build Back Better” package includes provisions on childcare and preschool, eldercare, healthcare, prescription drug pricing and immigration.

Deese said he was confident that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would bring the bill to a vote this week. That will only be a first step, however, as the Senate has not yet taken up the legislation, and Democratic divisions could threaten its chances in that chamber.

(Reporting by Steve Holland; Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Peter Cooney)

‘Sheriff Joe’ Biden to name coordinator to oversee $1 trillion in infrastructure bill

By Andrea Shalal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden said he would appoint a coordinator next week to oversee spending under a $1 trillion infrastructure bill, a role similar to one he held under former President Barack Obama that earned him the nickname “Sheriff Joe.”

Biden told reporters he had called his Cabinet members together to hammer home the need to ensure that the funding, and $1.75 trillion in a separate social and climate measure still working its way through Congress, were used wisely.

“One of our biggest responsibilities is to make sure the money is used efficiently and effectively,” he said at the start of a meeting. “If we do it right, we know what it’ll mean … we’ll create millions of new jobs and grow the economy.”

Biden said he would sign the infrastructure measure on Monday at a bipartisan ceremony, potentially outside, and expressed confidence that it would improve U.S. competitiveness versus China and other countries, while easing inflation that has spiked in recent months.

White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said the person who would oversee implementation of the newly passed U.S. infrastructure bill would come from outside the administration, but gave no further details.

Biden often talks about his role overseeing implementation of a $787 billion stimulus act while serving as vice president under Obama, a measure that he said resulted in less than .2% waste and fraud.

“Friends started calling me Sheriff Joe … because I made it a point every day to stay on top of how exactly the money was spent, what projects were being built, and what projects were not being built, and how it was functioning,” he said.

Biden earlier this year named former long-term economic adviser Gene Sperling to oversee implementation of $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package, and named Jeff Zients, a former Obama official, to head his administration’s overall COVID-19 response.

(Reporting by Andrea ShalalEditing by Chris Reese and Jonathan Oatis)

U.S. House advances Biden’s infrastructure, social programs

By David Morgan and Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives voted on Tuesday to advance key parts of President Joe Biden’s agenda after reaching a tentative compromise between moderates and progressives over which elements should take priority.

The House voted to move forward on a package that would advance Biden’s ambitious plan for trillions of dollars to expand child care and other social programs, championed by the party’s progressive wing.

The vote was 220-212 with no Republicans supporting the measure.

They agreed to vote by Sept. 27 on a $1 trillion infrastructure bill, a priority for moderate Democrats. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also said her chamber would work with the Senate to nail down the details of a larger $3.5 trillion budget with increased spending for social programs.

Biden’s fellow Democrats have little room for error as they try to approve the two massive spending initiatives in the House and Senate, where the party holds razor-thin majorities.

“These negotiations are never easy,” said Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern after his panel approved the deal. Members of the House briefly returned to Washington this week during their scheduled summer break to vote on the measures.

Pelosi had hoped to quickly approve the $3.5 trillion budget outline, which would enable lawmakers to begin filling in the details on the sweeping package that would boost spending on child care, education and other social programs and raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations.

But centrist Democrats, led by Representative Josh Gottheimer, had refused to go along, saying the House must first pass the infrastructure bill, which has already won approval by Republicans and Democrats in the Senate.

Liberals, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have said they will not support the smaller package without the larger one, fearing they will lose leverage.

Democrats hold a narrow 220-212 majority in the House.

Pelosi said that the House would work with the Senate on the details of the multitrillion-dollar budget outline, which Senate Democrats plan to pass using a maneuver that gets around that chamber’s normal rules requiring 60 of the 100 senators to agree to pass most legislation.

“It remains for us to work together, work with the Senate, to write a bill that preserves the privilege of 51 votes in the Senate,” Pelosi said. “So we must work together to do that in a way that passes the House and passes the Senate. And we must do so expeditiously.”

House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy blasted Pelosi and other Democrats with bare-knuckle partisan rhetoric for working on an agreement to secure Biden’s domestic spending priorities and voting legislation, without addressing the crisis in Afghanistan.

“Maybe in your caucus, you think it is a great day for you and the Democrats,” McCarthy said. “It’s an embarrassing day to America, it’s an embarrassing day for this floor and it’s embarrassing that you would even move forward with it.”

(Reporting by David Morgan and Susan HeaveyWriting by Andy SullivanEditing by Scott Malone, Jonathan Oatis and David Gregorio)

U.S. Senate passes bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure bill

By Richard Cowan and David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Senate on Tuesday passed a $1 trillion infrastructure package that is a top priority for U.S. President Joe Biden, a bipartisan victory that could provide the nation’s biggest investment in decades in roads, bridges, airports and waterways.

The vote was 69-30 in the 100-seat chamber, with 19 Republicans voting yes. Immediately after that vote concluded, Senators pushed ahead with a follow-up $3.5 trillion spending package that Democrats plan to pass without Republican votes.

Polls show that the drive to upgrade America’s infrastructure, hammered out over months by a bipartisan group of senators over months of negotiations, is broadly popular with the public.

The bill still has to go to the House of Representatives and the spirit of cooperation in Congress that led to Tuesday’s vote will likely prove fleeting.

“Big news, folks: The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal has officially passed the Senate,” Biden said on Twitter on Tuesday. “I hope Congress will send it to my desk as soon as possible so we can continue our work of building back better.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer expects also to have the votes to pass the budget resolution laying the groundwork for $3.5 trillion to be spent on healthcare, climate change and other Biden priorities that Democrats will almost certainly have to pass over Republican objections in a maneuver known as “budget reconciliation.”

“When the Senate is run with an open hand rather than a closed fist senators can accomplish big things,” Schumer said shortly before the voting began.

Once that resolution is adopted, Democrats will begin crafting the reconciliation package for a vote on passage after they return from their summer break in September.

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said repeatedly that her chamber will not take up either bill until she has both in hand, meaning that months of work remain before Tuesday’s measure would go to Biden’s desk to be signed into law.

“The House will continue to work with the Senate to ensure that our priorities for the people are included in the final infrastructure and reconciliation packages,” Pelosi said after the vote.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office on Thursday said the infrastructure bill would increase federal budget deficits by $256 billion over 10 years — an assessment rejected by negotiators who said the CBO was undercounting how much revenue it would generate.

After working for two consecutive weekends on the infrastructure bill, a “vote-a-rama” session that could run late into the evening will be in store for the Senate.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who voted for the infrastructure bill, signaled that Republicans would try to use the voting sessions to pick off support from moderate Democrats for what he called a “radical” larger spending package that would create a permanent welfare state and usher in the largest peacetime tax hike in U.S. history.

“Every single senator will be going on record over and over and over,” McConnell added. “We will debate, and we will vote, and we will stand up, and we will be counted, and the people of this country will know exactly which senators fought for them.”

The budget plan would provide various Senate committees with top-line spending levels for a wide range of federal initiatives, including helping the elderly get home healthcare and more families afford early childhood education.

It also would provide tuition-free community college and foster major investments in programs to significantly reduce carbon emissions blamed for climate change.

Later, Senate committees would have to fill in the details for scores of federal programs.

The budget blueprint was formally unveiled on Monday, the same day a U.N. climate panel warned that global warming was reaching emergency levels, or what U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described as a “code red for humanity.”

Senate passage of the infrastructure bill and the budget plan would clear the way for it to begin a month-long summer break.

When Congress returns in September, it will not only debate the large investment measures but have to fund government activities for the fiscal year beginning on Oct. 1, increase Washington’s borrowing authority and possibly try to pass a voting reform bill.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan and David Morgan; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)