President Joe Biden is hoping to get the bipartisan infrastructure deal on track by highlighting its expected economic benefits, stressing its $973 billion would include the largest investment in transportation in nearly a century and millions of jobs would be created.
White House officials issued an internal memo highlighting the impact on jobs and growth ahead of Biden leaving Tuesday for Wisconsin to make his case directly to voters. The memo, obtained by The Associated Press, notes that the total is four times the size of the infrastructure investment made a dozen years ago in response to the Great Recession and the biggest infrastructure package since Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal.
It also emphasizes an analysis suggesting that 90% of the jobs generated by the spending could go to workers without college degrees, a key shift as a majority of net job gains before the pandemic went to college graduates.
“This is a blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America,” the memo says.
Potential economic gains were a shared incentive for the group of Democratic and Republican senators who agreed to the deal on Thursday. But the process briefly fell into disarray as Biden suggested the deal would be held up until he also received a separate package for infrastructure, jobs and education that would be determined solely by Democrats through the budget reconciliation process.
Biden said Saturday that this was not a veto threat and by Monday the package appeared back on track.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Monday that Biden is “eager” for both bills to be approved by Congress and is going to “work his heart out” to make it happen.
“The president intends to sign both pieces of legislation into law,” Psaki said at her daily briefing.
Approval of both bills by Congress remains a long haul with this summer's initial votes expected in July. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell questioned the legislative process ahead and mounted fresh obstacles speaking Monday in Kentucky.
McConnell said he has not yet decided if he will support the bipartisan package, but he wants Biden to pressure House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer to say they will allow the bipartisan arrangement to pass without mandating that the much larger and broader follow-up bill be in place.
“I appreciate the president saying that he’s willing to deal with infrastructure separately, But he doesn’t control the Congress,” McConnell said at a press conference in Louisville.
The two bills had always been expected to move in tandem, and that is likely to continue as Biden drops his veto threat but reaches across the aisle for the nearly $1 trillion bipartisan package and as well as his own broader package. The Democratic leaders are pressing ahead on the broader bill, which includes Biden's families and climate change proposals as well as their own investments in Medicare, swelling to some $6 trillion.
The Democratic leaders did not immediately respond to McConnell's remarks.
The prospect of additional economic gains might be a way to garner public support and soothe partisan tensions. Biden also faces pressure from Democrats such as New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who told NBC's “Meet the Press” that the spending isn't as huge as it might seem because the sums are spread out over multiple years.
The eight-page White House memo comes from Brian Deese, director of the National Economic Council, and senior adviser Anita Dunn. It indicates that the $110 billion for roads and bridges would help relieve traffic and congestion that costs the economy over $160 billion annually. The memo justifies the $48.5 billion planned for public transit by citing studies that link light rail and buses to increased earnings and employment for workers. It defends the $66 billion for repairs and upgrades for rail lines by saying that current delays and disruptions weigh on growth.
The bipartisan agreement also would help nurture the market for electric vehicles, improve broadband access, repair water lines and create resilience against damage from extreme weather events.
Associated Press writer Lisa Mascaro in Washington and Bruce Schreiner in Louisville, Ky. contributed to this report.
Volatility continues to be the name of the game when it comes to crypto. Bitcoin, the most valuable digital token, saw a small jump today - one of several small rallies throughout the month of March. Caitlin Cook, vice president of crypto education company Onramp Academy, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
As of March 2022, almost 200 Anti-LGBT+ bills have been introduced in state governments across the country — especially directed at the transgender community. Human Rights Campaign State Legislative Director and Senior Counsel Cathryn Oakley joined Cheddar News to discuss the deluge of legislation. "Unfortunately we are seeing these bills come at transgender youth from every conceivable direction," she said. "Every support that a trans kid has, whether that's their parents, whether that's their family, whether that's their teachers or their guidance counselors or their coaches, whether it's their teammates or the librarians and the books that they read, whether it's curriculum, whether it's even just the ability to acknowledge that LGBTQ people have existed throughout history and are important in the fabric of modern American society. The bills that we are seeing filed across the country are targeting all of those pieces."
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week seemed to have put out a video that urged Ukrainians to put down their arms and surrender to Russia. It was later revealed that it was a “deepfake,” a computer-generated video to mimic the Ukrainian leader. Cheddar News speaks with security expert Morgan Wright about how the technology is being used in the war in Ukraine.
After scrutiny over the negative impact on the mental health of children, social media apps have begun adding stricter limitations to parental controls. Jim Steyer, CEO of Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization focusing on recommendations for entertainment platforms, joined Cheddar News to talk about the changes, why they might not be enough, and what parents can do to help. "It's almost that the companies — whether they're Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, or whatever — have to start the process from the beginning of designing the product," he said. "They have to be much more clear about age verification so that a 12-year-old and 11-year-old can't get on there." Steyer also pushed for federal legislation to reign in the issue.
As Big Tech companies from the U.S. like Google and Apple managed to build market dominance overseas, the European Union has decided to curb what it sees as monopolistic growth. Greg Martin, the co-founder of Rainmaker Securities, joined Cheddar News to talk about how the impact of the antitrust regulations being adopted. "I think there's a lot of great outcomes here, but those will be far down the road [because] I do think there's some interoperability things that need to be worked out technologically," he said. "But it's going to be really good ultimately for the consumer in my opinion."
Tenicka Boyd is a digital creator making content that reflects her two passions: activism and style. The TikTok star joined Cheddar News to talk about her platform and new looks this Spring. Boyd admitted that at first she wanted to remain anonymous on the social media platform before finding her passion. "I just joined TikTok hoping that no one would find me, and I started creating colorful content," she said. "I didn't know that you could monetize this and really do it full time, and I just followed my passion because I realized that you can have multiple different lives and do multiple different things."
Catching you up on what you need to know on March 25, 2022, with Ukrainian forces retaking Kyiv, 300 deaths reported from the bombing of a theater used as a shelter in Mariupol, U.S. regulators ditch a climate review of natural gas projects, the 94th Academy Awards, and more.
North Korea says it test-fired its biggest intercontinental ballistic missile under the orders of leader Kim Jong Un, who vowed to continue expanding his nuclear arsenal while preparing for a “long-standing confrontation” with the United States.
Ukrainian authorities in the besieged ruins of Mariupol say that about 300 people died when a Russian airstrike blew up a theater where hundreds of civilians were sheltering.
