by WASHINGTON — Billboards are popping up across the country conveying the message that President Joe Biden deserves a big chunk of the credit for the new bridges and highways being built with billions of federal money.
“Bipartisan Infrastructure Act Funded Project,” reads a bill to ease traffic on the Brent Spence Bridge over the Ohio River between Covington, Kentucky, and Cincinnati. “President Joe Biden,” the message continues. “Building a better America”.
Federal tax dollars are improving the bridge and paying for the signs, but Biden expects a windfall at the polls in 2024.
If he runs again, he will argue that lives are measurably improving because of legislation that most people You may not even realize that you helped get through. Maybe your commute to work takes less time or expanded broadband has eliminated the cyber dead zones in your neighborhood. Biden is meant to remind them that he pushed through a $1 trillion infrastructure spending bill and “implemented” it efficiently, making all of that possible, his aides said.
That can be a tough sell. Through bitter experience, elected officials from both parties have learned that rebuilding tunnels, railways and highways takes time, so long that any hope of a quick political dividend fades. Seeking to boost an economy reeling from financial collapse, then-President Barack Obama deployed nearly $50 billion in new transportation projects after taking office in 2009, only to comment ruefully a year later that the projects announced as “ready to shovel” they were nothing of the sort.
What is different this time around, Biden allies argue, is that projects are moving from conception to completion more quickly, which could make all the difference in the 2024 presidential election.
About 20,000 projects have received funding under the bill that Biden signed into law in 2021. Mitch Landrieu, the former New Orleans mayor who coordinates the infrastructure program for the Biden administration, said the benefits will be visible to people. when the next elections are held. roll around
“There are projects coming up as we speak,” he said. “Almost every physical project you see coming out of the ground right now has a federal dollar. It’s going to be critically important. Some of these things will take a little longer, but most people will know.”
The stimulus bills that Obama launched were, in a way, a test of the broader program that Biden envisions. “We are rebuilding the whole country,” Landrieu said.
More than anyone, Biden is familiar with the pitfalls and successes of what the Obama administration undertook: Obama appointed then-Vice President Biden to oversee the program, calling him “Sheriff Joe.”
One lesson learned from the Obama years is how to identify and position projects so that they are truly “ready to go” when the financial tap is turned on, officials said.
In Colorado, officials are widening a stretch of I-70 in hopes of easing a notorious bottleneck as motorists travel to iconic ski lodges, including Vail and Breckenridge. A $100 million federal grant is helping to finance the project.
“We call it the first place to get stuck in traffic going into the mountains,” said Shoshana Lew, executive director of the Colorado department of transportation and a former Obama administration official.
“We received the largest federal grant our department has ever received because of” the infrastructure spending law, he said. “It’s already under construction and it’s moving very quickly.”
Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo., who heads the House Democrats’ policy and messaging operation, argued that these infrastructure projects “move the needle” for voters as they head to the polls.
Several months ago, Neguse was at the groundbreaking for the I-70 project. “It will transform rural and mountain highway communities, a big deal for my constituents, a big deal for the people of Colorad,” he said. “And you can go down the list in terms of broadband projects, water infrastructure projects and the like that have real impact every day.”
Others suggest that Biden’s timetable may be too ambitious, given the complexities involved in federal spending.
Jim Gilmore, Virginia’s Republican governor from 1998 to 2002, helped launch construction of a new Woodrow Wilson Bridge connecting his state to Maryland. When the ribbon cutting took place in 2006, a Democratic governor was in office, and Gilmore was not invited to the ceremony.
Was the name of the bridge changed to “Jim Gilmore-Woodrow Wilson Bridge”? Gilmore asked, rhetorically. Was not.
“I found the federal money to be very frustrating,” Gilmore said. “It always came with so many strings attached, it was very difficult to use the money effectively and quickly enough to get things done.”
Another hurdle facing Biden is a long-standing problem facing the candidates. Voters are often in tune with the present and the future, not with what a politician has done in the past. Amid high inflation and fears of a next recessionmany Americans may be more focused on paying the bills than celebrating the new charging stations for electric cars that they can’t afford.
John McLaughlin, a pollster for former President Donald Trump, said that “the negative impact of higher prices for gasoline, food, energy, housing and other essentials is being felt now and is severely hurting Biden and Democrats.” ”.
Once Biden formally becomes a candidate, he will be able to leverage campaign funds to show that his infrastructure package is improving lives.
“You can bet that he will communicate about it and people will see it,” said a person close to Biden, who was not authorized to speak publicly.
Until then, the president and his supporters will have to improvise.
Speaking to House Democrats this week at a retreat in Baltimore, Biden held up a red, white and blue sign for the city’s Frederick Douglass Tunnel, whose future improvements will allow trains to travel at more than 100 miles per hour, in 30th place. “President Joe Biden; Frederick Douglass Tunnel; Bipartisan Infrastructure Act,” the sign read.
“If we did nothing, nothing more than implement what we have already passed and let people know who did it for them, we won,” Biden said.
Democrats want similar signs promoting projects underway in their districts across the country.
“I can use that as a sandwich board,” Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., said of the sign. “I might just walk with it.”
Peter Nicholas reported from Washington and Scott Wong from Baltimore.
