(Washington) Finally a success for Joe Biden? After weeks of negotiations and internal quarrels, the House of Representatives will vote on Friday on the investment plans of the American president, 3000 billion in spending thanks to which he promises to transform the United States.
The lower house of Congress met at 8 a.m. to discuss during the day the two projects on which the Democratic leader is betting to revive his presidency.
The first is a huge envelope to renovate the country’s dilapidated roads, bridges and transport, but also to invest in high-speed internet and the American fleet of electric cars. The plan calls for $ 1.2 trillion in spending – the equivalent of Spain’s annual GDP.
This colossal investment plan has already been approved in the Senate in mid-August, supported by elected officials from both parties, a rare occurrence in a politically ultra-divided Congress.
His passage in the House would mark a major victory for Joe Biden, who would only have to ratify the text.
The president, facing tumbling popularity ratings and weakened by a resounding defeat in a local election in Virginia this week, is in desperate need of that success.
Weather
The second plan examined in the lower house, even more voluminous, is a social and climate component called “Build Back Better” which provides for nursery school for all, a profound improvement in health coverage, and significant investments to reduce emissions. greenhouse gases.
On this project, Joe Biden can not yet claim victory.
For weeks, he has been the subject of very tense negotiations between two fringes of the Democratic Party, the left wing and the moderate camp. Its total cost has already been halved, down to $ 1,750 billion from an initial figure of $ 3,500 billion.
If this text is validated by the elected representatives of the House on Friday, it will still have to be approved in the Senate, where it risks being significantly altered.
Its fate is more particularly in the hands of an elected representative of the mining state of West Virginia, Senator Joe Manchin, who says he fears that the plan will further widen public debt and fuel inflation.
In view of the very thin Democratic majority in the Senate, this elected official has virtually a right of veto on the project.
Before American Thanksgiving
Joe Biden’s trips to the Capitol, breakfasts with elected officials … the White House is trying by all means to put its troops in working order.
Because the US executive does its utmost to repeat it: the president’s spending programs are very popular with Americans, according to polls. However, the Democrats will call into play in a year their narrow majority in Congress during parliamentary elections of mid-term, always perilous for the presidents in place.
“American families want historic investments in infrastructure … in competitiveness and in the fight against the climate crisis,” insisted a spokesperson for the White House, Karine Jean-Pierre Thursday.
But Joe Biden, who praised his negotiating skills during the presidential campaign because of his long career as a senator, stumbles on divisions within his party.
The Democratic leader in the Senate Chuck Schumer still seems confident. He says he wants to end this legislative process by the very popular Thanksgiving holiday (November 25).
It will then be time for elected officials to look at two other big legislative projects, which still promise epic battles: raising the US debt ceiling, otherwise the United States will run out of money and approve a new budget for the US government.