Republicans’ Plan to Sink Biden’s Infrastructure Bill: Lots of Whining, No Solutions

Barack Obama built his first presidential campaign on a theme of national unity. “I firmly believe that we cannot solve the challenges of our time,” he said on the way, “unless we solve them together.” But that bipartisan dream hit a wall as he took office thanks to a Republican party that would hardly treat him as a legitimate president, let alone work with him. Obama has “not made the public relations of the Republicans a priority,” said the former spokesman for the House of Representatives John Boehner, the friendly enemy of the President on Capitol Hill in those years, recalls his upcoming memoir, an excerpt of which appeared in Politico on Friday. “But on the other hand, how do you find common cause with people who believe you are a secret Kenyan Muslim traitor to America?”

More than a decade later, in a country that is even more divided and facing an even more radical GOP, Obama’s vice president is Joe Biden, took office with his own promise of unity – one that sounded nice but also naive. Has he learned anything from the eight years of watching Republicans handicapped Obama, asked many in his party as he stood up for a campaign? They followed from the last four years Donald Trump? The answer seems to be yes. Biden continues to talk about collaboration and unification as a country, but it has become clear that he is working to tear down his predecessor’s legacy through an executive order to put his $ 1.9 trillion COVID relief bill over the objections the Republican legislature to deliver and leave his momentum behind plans like the infrastructure package he proposed this week that he means something very specific when he speaks of unity. Six dozen days after his presidency, Biden has tried to change the tone in Washington, but he has also placed one condition on his compromise offer: all sides argue in good faith.

This approach has been neatly summarized by his Chief of Staff, Ron klain, in a Politico interview on Thursday. Talking about the first part of the infrastructure plan that Biden announced on Wednesday, Klain described the administration as open to working with members of his party and Republicans to come up with a proposal. “Let’s work together and see if there’s a way to make this happen,” said Klain. But in the next breath he made it clear that the government would not confuse disability with disability – a hallmark of Mitch McConnellReigned as leader of the Senate Republicans – for real negotiations. “The president was chosen to do a job and part of that job is preparing this country to win the future,” said Klain. “He’ll do that.”

McConnell and the Republicans have, of course, already opposed the plan. “I will fight them at every step because I think this is the wrong recipe for America,” the minority leader said in a press conference on Thursday. “The package that you are putting together now, as much as we want to deal with the infrastructure, will not receive any support from our side.” Part of the opposition will be based on characterizing Biden’s plans as the “kitchen sink” of lavish progressive demands “as the minority leader of the house Kevin McCarthy say it thursday. Another part will complain that they are being excluded from the process. “A Senate that is evenly divided between the two parties and a mere majority in the Democratic House is hardly a mandate to do it alone.” Mitt Romney Tweeted Thursday. “The president should live up to the bipartisanism he preached in his inaugural address.”

However, bipartisanism only works when each side works in good faith. Biden’s American employment plan could define “infrastructure” broader than some, especially Republicans – and it may need to review some of the calculations behind it. But it offers real solutions to real problems the country is facing and would likely create real jobs along the way. “Let’s start with the areas where we agree,” said the White House press secretary Jen Psaki said earlier this week. “If people have alternative suggestions, we’d love to hear them.” So far, the Republican opposition seems to be developing in a way that looks very similar to its crusade against Obamacare: they have had four years to do something about it, but have not done so and are offering objections without counterproposals. “The Biden infrastructure plan is not about improving the American infrastructure,” said the Republican senator Tim Scott wrote on the day the president revealed it. “It’s another Trojan horse on the extreme left agenda.”

Biden’s bet is that the American people, including Republican voters, don’t see it that way. He was right once before: No Republican senators voted for his COVID package, but the American people – including a significant segment of Republican and Republican-minded voters – overwhelmingly backed it, and GOP lawmakers who tried to pass it by to hinder, did it nevertheless seemed to strive to demand recognition for it. Given that voters are currently largely backing the tax hike for the rich to fund infrastructure improvements, the Biden administration is hoping the GOP’s opposition to the law will be confined to Capitol Hill. “We know that there is bipartisan support in the country,” said Klain on Thursday. “And so we’re going to do our best to get bipartisan support here in Washington.” The lesson for Biden over the past 12 years under Obama and Trump is: don’t rely on it.

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