Biden’s 2020 campaign slogan was not as inspiring as a “Change We Can Believe In”. It was not meant to be a crowd-puller like “Make America Great Again”. But “Build Back Better” resonated due to its one big promise that we believed in, one that seemed to put national interests ahead of international heroism. The historic bipartisan infrastructure deal.
There was a lot of money in that package, 1.2 trillion to be exact, for repairing our bridges, roads, public transportation network and more. This was a big deal, especially since the only notable infrastructure investment by the Trump administration was a border wall.
The “Trump Wall” sounded crazy at the time, but now not so much when compared to the “Iron Wall” that Israel built to keep the Palestinians out. I guess when we hear “walls” we think of the Berlin Wall, and it sounds bad.
Ironically, Biden is having to put the finishing touches by allocating $950 million of the Trump-era funds, clearly contradicting his earlier proclamations about its effectiveness. Politics!
At the signing of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) in November 2021, which kicked off Biden’s 1st year with an early political win, here’s what he said:
“My message to the American people is this: America is moving again, and your life is going to change for the better.”
Did it, though? Two years later, as an election year approaches us, I can’t help wonder: Where’s all that money gone/going?
Here’s what the IIJA boldly set out to achieve in a nutshell, excerpted from the White House statement:
Deliver clean water, reducing dependency on service lines
Access to reliable high-speed internet
Repair and rebuild our roads and bridges with a focus on climate change mitigation, resilience, equity, and safety for all users
Improve transportation options, reduce greenhouse emissions through the largest investment in public transit in U.S. history
Upgrade airports and ports
Make the largest investment in passenger rail since the creation of Amtrak
Build a national network of electric vehicle (EV) chargers
Upgrade power infrastructure to deliver clean, reliable energy to achieve a zero-emissions future
Build resilience against the impacts of climate change, cyber-attacks, and extreme weather events
Tackle legacy pollution in American history
Phew! What a tall order. Did the Biden-Harris government oversell and underdeliver?
According to the recent Timeout survey, when it comes to the best in class public transportation, NYC and Chicago rank lower compared to European and East Asian cities that dominate the top 10.
Fast-growing cities like Nashville, Tennessee, ranked #1 among US cities with the hardest commute, are in dire need for a commuter rail network to connect its suburbs and exurbs. A promising referendum called “Let’s Move Nashville” got derailed 5 years ago. The IIJA should have solved that and revived such efforts across the nation. Instead, the only reported evidence is of Portland, Honolulu, and St. Paul furthering their rail projects by dipping into the IIJA funding. Incidentally, they are also democratic stronghold cities that Biden banks on for a repeat victory, which begs the question: Did bipartisanism die when the ink dried?
Amtrak is another example of all talk and slow progress. How far did the $66 billion that was allocated solely for the purpose of upgrading Biden’s beloved railway network help in expanding it beyond the Northeast corridor? When it comes to intercity high-speed rail, the indisputable truth is that America falls drastically behind Europe and Asia. China leads (obviously) with Japan, Korea, Germany, Spain, and Italy featuring in the top 10.
India, one of the fastest growing economies, is following suit with the Vande Bharat high-speed train network. We are seeing increased spending on green energy initiatives under the Modi government, and the results are showing. In fact, the 2023-24 budget allocated close to $25 billion to the Ministry of Railways, the highest ever railway spend to date. Additionally, the latest budget also allocated close to $30 billion to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) for 25000 kilometers of road development projects.
So, when developing countries like India can operationalize over 30 routes for high-speed trains in a span of just 4 years, with a fraction of the spending power, it begs the question: Why is America still trailing behind?
Granted, it may be easier to go full throttle in a country where cheap labor is not hard to find, unlike the United States. Biden’s infrastructure czar, Mitch Landrieu, echoed this sentiment in an interview to The New Republic in March 2023.
According to Mitch, $200 billion of the funding has been dispersed just last year for over 20,000 projects and awards in all 50 states and U.S. territories, which includes,
Starting repairs to more than 69,000 miles of roadway
500,000 electric vehicle charging stations
3,700 bridge repair and replacement projects
Over 5,000 clean transit school buses
Approve state plans for water funding and high-speed internet deployment
Mitch says he understands the public skepticism and underscores the challenges his team faces to implement something this big, a project that could take up to 15-years and span multiple administrations. So, Biden is set to travel the country and talk about the completed projects, and like any politician looking to get re-elected would do, we are likely to hear only the stories of success.
As per the current political climate, there is also a real possibility of Biden losing the 2024 elections, what with his plummeting approval ratings and a wavered focus since year two. If that happens, nothing stops the GOP from telling a different story. They would highlight the failures, and could even take away a chunk of the money.
So another round of the Biden-Harris administration may be the smarter American choice, provided we stop playing God to the world, and focus on America first.