US Congress passes Biden broad infrastructure plan

(Washington) The American Congress definitively adopted Friday evening the vast plan of investments in the infrastructures wanted by Joe Biden who must now sign the text to allow its entry into force.

The adoption of this $ 1.2 trillion plan by the House of Representatives, after the Senate in August, is a mixed victory for the American president who failed to secure a vote on Friday on his other gigantic plan. investments in the social and ecological fields.

The Democratic President has been fighting for months to pass two ambitious plans, one involving $ 1.2 trillion in spending to renovate American roads, bridges and the Internet, the second to fundamentally reform the country’s social protection system. and invest in the fight against global warming. This second component amounts to 1,750 billion.

“I urge all members to vote […] for the final passage tonight of the bipartisan infrastructure law, ”Joe Biden said in a statement Friday evening. He also said he was confident in the approval “in the week of November 15” of the law on the social component.

The American House of Representatives had met in the morning with a clear objective: to finally validate these two plans for a total amount of 3 trillion in spending thanks to which it promises to transform America.

The very large social component, in particular provides for nursery school for all, a profound improvement in health coverage and significant investments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – a profound redefinition of the welfare state in the United States.

But this project is the subject of very difficult negotiations within the Democratic Party, in particular between the left wing and the moderate camp.

” A challenge ”

Throughout the day, Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi tried to get her troops in order, and to build support for the president’s plans.

“The program that we are putting forward is innovative, historic, and this is what makes it a challenge,” she said in a letter to the Democrats, as if to explain these internal quarrels between elected officials of the party.

But last-minute negotiations – moderate elected officials demanding precise costing of these expenses – ended up paralyzing the process and forced the leaders in Congress to postpone, once again, the holding of a vote.

For its part, the colossal infrastructure investment project has already been approved in the Senate in mid-August, supported by elected officials from both parties. After its passage through the House, it should only be ratified by the President before entering into force.

Joe Biden, facing a tumbling popularity rating and weakened by a resounding defeat in a local election in Virginia this week, badly needs that success.

But the progressive wing of the Democratic Party has repeatedly warned that it would not support this text without a guarantee of the passage of the social and climate component of Joe Biden. This is why a procedural vote, the first step in the parliamentary process, was also scheduled for Friday evening on this text.

In the hands of Manchin

Biden’s trips to the Capitol, breakfasts with elected officials… The White House does its utmost to garner support.

Because the US executive repeats it over and over again: 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.

But Joe Biden, who praised his negotiating skills during the presidential campaign because of his long career as a senator, stumbles on these internal disputes.

And the president is not at the end of his sentences.

If it obtains the green light from elected officials in the Chamber after mid-November, its major social component 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 official from 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, he virtually has a right of veto on the project.