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Joe Biden stood in front of an aging bridge in Woodstock, New Hampshire on Tuesday as some of the first winter snowflakes began to fall, and touted the $550 billion in new infrastructure spending he had just signed into law. But that bipartisan infrastructure law, which will fix bridges and roads and expand Internet access and train lines across the country, isn’t enough, he said. The American middle class has been “hollowed out,” according to Biden, and the time has come to “rebuild the backbone of this nation.”
To do that, Biden wants Congress to pass a second raft of spending proposals designed to reduce the costs of childcare, elder care, housing and prescription drugs, as well as take greater strides toward reducing the U.S. contribution to climate change. Those are central parts of Biden’s agenda, and most Democratic strategists believe passing them will be important for Democrats on the ballot in next year’s midterm elections. Top aides to Biden also think getting that second fleet of actions done is crucial to reverse Americans’ sagging view of the President’s own performance.
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But it is precisely those low approval ratings—hovering in the low 40s by mid-November—that are hurting Biden’s chances of getting the so-called Build Back Better plan through Congress. It’s one of the physical laws of Washington that poll numbers bring their own gravity. And right now, that means Biden is caught in a vicious vortex: his poll numbers make it harder to get his agenda passed, but his advisors believe that passing his agenda is the best way to improve the polling.
The House may vote on the Build Back Better bill as soon as this week. But then it will head to the Senate, where Democratic senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have stymied progress on the plan for months over concerns about raising tax rates, paid family leave, climate provisions and the overall cost. Biden has so far taken a soft approach…
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Source : time
