Mr. Biden campaigned on a broad infrastructure agenda, with trillions of dollars invested in transportation, water and sewage, and the scaffolding of an energy sector that significantly reduces US carbon emissions, financed by tax increases on multinational companies and big winners.
The components of the plan respond well – which was not enough for Biden’s predecessors.
Obama largely failed for political reasons: Republicans did not want to give him another victory. His attempt to sell Congress a $ 50 billion plan to rebuild 150,000 miles of roads, lay and maintain 4,000 miles of tracks and restore 150 miles of airport runways suffered from following the heels of his 2009 stimulus bill. Republicans considered this a “stimulus déjà vu”.
Although Trump often talked about investing in infrastructure, he never seemed serious about dealing with the problem and constantly allowed other matters to distract him. For example, in August 2017, the Trump administration organized an event at the Trump Tower in Manhattan in order to highlight how the administration was trying to streamline licensing.
Instead, the press conference turned into one of the darkest and most defining moments of the Trump presidency: a brash swing with reporters in which Trump defended the white supremacists who had recently marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, arguing that they were “people very good on both sides ”.
When it came to selling an infrastructure message, “we had some communication challenges,” said DJ Gribbin, an infrastructure specialist who led the event while working for the National Economic Council.
Lobbyists say Biden starts with a better chance of success than any of his predecessors.
Business groups and many Republicans have expressed a willingness to work with the government to approve $ 1 trillion or more in infrastructure spending. Areas according to progressives include spending on highways, bridges, rural broadband networks, water and sewage lines and even some pillars of combating climate change, such as electric car charging stations.