The Infrastructure Bill: A Quiet Victory That Speaks Volumes on Our Current Political Climate

Yesterday President Biden signed the long-awaited $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill into law. The bill was a big win for the Biden administration, but despite this major milestone for there doesn't seem to be much national enthusiasm about it. This is likely because the political climate is so polarized, that things like infrastructure, which have traditionally had wide bipartisan support aren't near enough to either end of the political spectrum to get either base riled up. Here are a few of my thoughts on the infrastructure bill.

The Bill

As noted above, the bill has a 1.2 trillion dollar price tag and includes $550 billion in new federal investments that will be delivered over the next 5 years, along with $650 billion already authorized for roads and other infrastructure. Included in the new $550 billion is:

-$110 billion for road, bridges, and major infrastructure projects, which notably dedicates $1 billion to reconnect communities (mostly black ones) that were disconnected by highways and other infrastructure;

-$39 billion for modernizing public transit, which will help modernize the bus and rail industry;

-$66 billion in passenger and freight rail, which includes high-speed rail;

-$65 billion to improve that nations broadband infrastructure;

-$17 billion to improve port infrastructure;

-$25 billion to improve airport infrastructure;

-$108 billion to improve the electric grid;

-$55 billion to upgrade the water infrastructure;

-$50 billion to make the electric and water system more resilient;

-$7.5 billion in electric buses and ferries;

-$7.5 billion in building a nationwide network of electric car chargers;

As large as this deal was, the original proposal was much larger and included things like $400 billion to address the elderly and disabled, $100 billion in workforce development, $18 billion to modernize Veteran Affairs hospitals, as well as expanded long term access through Medicaid. Also left out were a number of corporate tax hikes that were going to be used to pay for the legislation.

The Politics

Under normal circumstances, this legislation would be considered in Biden's own words, "a big fucking deal." However, the reception to it has been lukewarm at best. Although it was a bipartisan bill, few Republicans gave much visible support for it. Even the Minority Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, who voted for the bill and called it a "godsend" for his state didn't attend the signing ceremony of the bill.

If you're wondering why few Republicans are not being very public about their support for the bill, it might have to do with the fact that people like former President Trump, who proposed his own infrastructure bill the entire time he was president, is berating Republicans like McConnell who signed off on the current one. Its also clear that his trashing the bill is primarily for political reasons, seeing that he stated that the infrastructure deal gives "Biden and the Democrats a victory just as they were falling off a cliff." Some Republicans even received death threats after US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted out the names and office phone numbers of the 13 GOP US Representatives who supported the infrastructure deal.

Another factor is the fact that inflation is currently high and the economy is still sluggish from the pandemic, which tends to drive down the polling numbers of the party in power, which in this case are the Democrats. As such, it may be no wonder why the Democrats have such low polling numbers right now. Those low polling numbers translated into a loss in the governor's race in Virginia and a narrow win in the governor's race in New Jersey, both states which Biden carried the year before by double-digit numbers. Currently, the Democrats are doing a nationwide sales pitch to publicize the Biden agenda, including the recent infrastructure deal, so they can move on with other parts of his agenda like the $1.75 trillion spending package currently pending in Congress.

The Issue of Extreme Polarization

President Biden ran on a platform that promoted bipartisanship, instead of considering it a sign of weakness as Trump did. This willingness to embrace bipartisanship is why the New York Times noted that Biden was able to get this infrastructure deal through the necessary steps to become law and Trump wasn't. However, previous infrastructure bills have passed on much on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis, as opposed to this bill which barely squeaked out of Congress. So why are we continuing to see so much polarization, where we used to be large bipartisan support? I blame it in large part on gerrymandering.

Gerrymandering is when a voting district is drawn to give an undue favor to a political party. In a previous post on redistricting, I mentioned the issues we have seen with redistricting in Texas this year, but it's not a problem unique to Texas and didn't start this year. In reality, where we are is a result of decades of gerrymandering, which has resulted in less and less bipartisanship and more extreme partisanship. This is because when a district is highly gerrymandered, they become less concerned about the opposing parties, which has little chance of winning and highly focused on more extreme candidates from within their own party who may challenge them during a primary election. Even more troubling is the fact that the US Supreme Court has upheld partisan gerrymandering as beyond the scope of federal courts, even though partisan gerrymandering overlaps so heavily along racial lines, and voter discrimination based on race is illegal.

As I've already noted in my previous post on redistricting, I think that it would be better for nonpartisan groups to draw the precincts than the current policy in many places where the politicians get to draw their own districts. More competitive races would encourage bipartisanship, because politicians would be more accountable to both parties, along with more moderate independents. If we continue down the current path, however, we will continue to see less cooperation between parties and as a result, less legislation that benefits both parties.

Conclusion

In summary, I'm glad that the infrastructure bill has become law, as it's long overdue. However, the lack of vocal bipartisanship for it is concerning and definitely an issue that needs to be addressed more in the future.