So this is what winning looks like
After four long years, Infrastructure Week has officially come to a well-deserved end – with results that see America winning. You might remember when a certain former guy once promised a whole lot of winning for America during his campaign – so much so that we’d likely be sick of it. During the 2016 election, spending on infrastructure was virtually the only issue on the table that had bipartisan support – and was a key part of both the Trump and Clinton presidential platforms that year.
The only difference is that while Trump and the GOP talked about it, they never really delivered – while largely just offering a watered down proposal the Obama administration initially wanted to do before Democrats lost their majorities.
On Monday, President Biden finally carried out the efforts of his two predecessors by signing into law a $1.2 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal – a much needed piece of legislation for revitalizing the economy with overwhelming support behind it, and the White House Chief of Staff had this exact way to frame it: Donald Trump might have seen himself as a dealmaker, but in four years, he never once passed a piece of infrastructure legislation. His biggest legislative victory as president was just a tax cut that everyone hated.
That should be the message going into 2022: One party may have made a lot of noise about an infrastructure deal, but only full control from the other party made it happen – and that’s why both parties aren’t the same.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making