Final vote tally for H.R. 3684-Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act
Image Credit: House Television via AP
***
If there is agreement on nothing else in Washington, the one area, you would think, that we can all agree on is how bad (downright deplorable) the crumbling roads and bridges are in the United States.
For evidence, look no further than the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) report card for 2021. It assigned a “C-” grade, up from a “D+” in 2017, the highest grade in twenty years. In addition, the United States faces an “infrastructure investment gap” of nearly $2.6 trillion this decade, which left unaddressed, could cost the United States $10 trillion in lost GDP by 2039.
McKinsey & Company researchers say that $150 billion per year will be required between 2017 and 2030 to modernize the country’s infrastructure needs.
President Joe Biden responded quickly to the alarm bells and developed a $2 trillion “Build Back Better” infrastructure plan, an ambitious plan, which he promoted as a “once-in-a-generation investment in America.”
The second part of Biden’s infrastructure plan (which hasn’t been voted on yet) is a social spending bill that includes hundreds of billions of dollars for child- and elder-care programs, which is considered “human infrastructure.” To fund this plan, Biden has proposed raising taxes on corporations and wealthy Americans.
After heaps of acrimony and uncivilized debate, Congress passed a $1.2 trillion, bipartisan plan, which will invest hundreds of dollars to upgrade physical infrastructure, including roads and bridges, railways, airports, and water systems. The plan additionally invests tens of billions of dollars to modernize the U.S. electrical grid, aggressively embrace electric vehicles, and significantly expand broadband internet access.
With the stroke of a pen, President Biden will sign the bill on Monday.
On the face of it, this should have all the makings of a grand celebration for America’s infrastructure, much like when President Dwight D. Eisenhower on June 30, 1956, signed a record $33 billion road-building program, a bipartisan authorization bill, which was met with little opposition in Congress. Sinclair Weeks, Secretary of Commerce under the Eisenhower administration hailed the bill as the “the greatest public-works program in the history of the world.”
Unlike Ike’s, the harmony in Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill was nowhere to be found. Most Republicans were dead set against it, labeling a socialist bill. Only 13 Republicans broke ranks and voted for it.
The final tally for the bill’s passage in Congress was 228-206.
The infrastructure bill was greeted a little more warmly in the other chamber, when Senate Minority leader, Mitch McConnell, and 19 Senate Republicans voted in favor of the infrastructure bill on August 10th of this year.
It’s practically unfathomable how vicious Republicans opposition to the bill were. FOX News commentator Laura Ingraham tweeted the 13 Republicans who voted for the bill had signed their “political death warrants. “
That was just the beginning.
The GOP House leadership quickly launched a malicious drive to strip committee assignments from the 13 Republican lawmakers who voted for the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., tweeted that those 13 Republicans "handed over their voting cards" to Nancy Pelosi to pass Biden's "Communist takeover of America via so-called infrastructure."
Why aren’t those members demonizing the 13 GOP members of Congress who voted for the bill being challenged by their own constituents and local newspapers for wanting to deny their state of badly needed infrastructure upgrades?
Why on earth would Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), want to oppose a bill that would deprive her own state of $12.5 billion in badly needed funding in Georgia over the next 20 years to maintain drinking water infrastructure. Georgia’s report card from the American Society of Civil Engineers additionally shows that Georgia has 374 bridges and more than 2,260 miles highway in poor condition.
Yet, Marjorie Taylor Greene likens the bill to communism and no one as much as bats an eye in her home state.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, (R-Fla) tweeted that he couldn’t believe Republicans gave the Democrats their socialism bill even though his own state of Florida has 408 bridges and over 3,564 miles of highway in poor condition. From 2010 to 2020, the Sunshine State incurred 22 extreme weather events, which cost up to $100 billion in damages. The recently passed infrastructure bill will infuse $50 billion to help communities, like Florida, recover from disasters.
If I lived in Florida, I would be outraged that Gaetz wouldn’t support such a bill knowing how badly their state was slammed with weather disaster damages.
After reading such spiteful tweets, you became painfully aware how much the GOP has lost its purpose in Washington, abandoned its values and principles, and have forgot why they were elected, which is to improve the lives of their constituents through the enactment of better laws and to act as a strong voice for the crying needs of their communities.
Today, most members of the Republican Party, sadly, are more interested in tweeting the most outrageous comment on social media in order to elicit media attention and create a buzz on social media than they are in improving the lives of the residents they supposedly represent.
Their vicious attacks and vows of revenge against the 13 GOP members who voted their conscious and what was best for their state, was downright appalling. How do they live with themselves in refusing to be part of a bill that will repair the nation’s dilapidated infrastructure?
It really makes little sense to oppose such a bill when you look at the disturbing evidence of the condition of the country’s infrastructure.
Henry Petroski, a historian, in his book, “The Road Taken: The History and Future of America’s Infrastructure” writes that poor infrastructure can impose large costs on the U.S. economy. In addition to catastrophic failures with bridge collapses or dam breaches, poorly maintained roads, trains, and waterways cost billions of dollars in lost economic productivity.
In addition to the gloomy report from the American Society of Civil Engineers, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) finds that nearly one in four bridges are deficient, with 10 % considered as structurally deficient and 14 % functionally obsolete.
The World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report in 2019 ranks the United States infrastructure at 13th in the world, behind France, Germany, Japan, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom.
Equally alarming, a 2020 Federal Communications Commission report finds that approximately 18 million Americans, most living in rural areas, lack access to any broadband network.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that drinking water and irrigation systems need $632 billion in additional investment over the next decade.
And yet the United States hypes itself as one of the wealthiest countries in the world.
Besides the desperate need for drastic improvement of roads and bridges, Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill will serve as a significant boon to the ailing economy in the post-pandemic United States.
By increasing efficiency and reliability and lowering transportation costs, analysts contend that investment in the nation’s infrastructure would improve “long-term U.S. competitiveness, insulate the economy from shocks, and create jobs.”
Imagine, the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers estimates that $1 billion of transportation-infrastructure investment supports as many as 13,000 jobs for a year.
This bill should have been championed by both parties as a great American success story. Instead, some members of the Republican House of Representatives (such as Rep. Fred Upton R-Mich.) are being demonized and receiving death threats because Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) posted many of their phone numbers on her Twitter page. Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois reportedly received a call to slit his wrists and “rot in hell.” Another caller hoped Don Bacon of Nebraska would slip and fall down a staircase.
Because we live in an age when compromise is considered a dirty word and Republicans didn’t want to give Joe Biden legislative win, they were willing to neglect the needs of the nation’s infrastructure and were ok with denying potential jobs for constituents in their own state, all so they could embarrass Joe Biden.
As expected, former president Donald Trump demonized the bill, saying they [13 House members] should be “ashamed of themselves” for “helping the Democrats.”
Trump went mute over what the bill actually does for the country.
What kind of country have we become?
I never read about President Eisenhower being branded a socialist or communist for sponsoring and signing the Federal Highway Act of 1956, which gave birth to America’s interstate highway system. Eisenhower would later say that the Federal Highway Act was his favorite piece of legislation that he worked hard to get passed.
Everyone knows Washington is broken and dysfunctional; but even the Republicans, if they had any brains, would have subscribed to the timeless adage: “choose your fights wisely.”
Even Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell considered the infrastructure bill a “godsend” for his home state of Kentucky.
Jennifer Gosar, the sister of Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), told CNN’s Pamela Brown that she considers him a “sociopath”
***
Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz) tweeted an image of someone killing progressive Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. Soon after, Gosar’s sister appeared on CNN, calling her own brother a “sociopath.”
I’m sure It would come as little surprise to Jennifer Gosar to know that her brother isn’t the only sociopath in Congress.
Clearly, Republicans in the House of Representatives, at least most of them, are now members of the House of Crazies!
--Bill Lucey
November 14, 2021
Bill, thanks for writing about infrastructure....even a poison toad like Mitch McConnell recognized that a bridge from Cincinnati to Kentucky is likely to fall into the Ohio, one of these days.
He and good old Blind Trust Manchin (his money is in coal) take American tax money for their states. I read that West Virginia receives 2.5 times the money it produces in taxes.
Also, nice book list. Guelzo wrote a very good book on Gettysburg around the 150th anniversary.
I appreciate your view on things.
George Vecsey
Posted by: George Vecsey | 11/15/2021 at 09:41 AM