Last Call For Ridin' With Biden, Con't

President Biden announced at the White House today that a number of infrastructure programs would be getting federal money from the bill passed last year, starting with high-speed internet.

 

President Joe Biden Monday announced how $42.5 billion from the bipartisan infrastructure law he championed will be distributed to expand high-speed internet access across the country.

The funding will go to all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and U.S. territories, and is aimed at bolstering internet access particularly for the 7% of people who live in underserved areas, according to the White House.

With White House remarks announcing the funding, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris plan to kick off a three-week pitch aimed at touting their administration's investments across the country -- from the 2021 infrastructure law and a host of other legislation they argue is starting to make concrete improvements in Americans' lives.

It comes as Biden faces political headwinds on his handling of the economy, which consistently is a top issue for voters heading into the 2024 elections.

On Wednesday, he is scheduled to deliver what the White House is billing as a major speech on "Bidenomics" – what his advisers have labeled his economic philosophy of investing in the middle class.

 

Bidenomics includes money for buses and electric vehicles too.

The Biden administration announced Monday it will disperse $1.7 billion for more than 1,700 new buses around the country, some of which are expected to be electric.

Outlining the funds on a press call last week, an administration official said 700 of the buses will be zero-emission — a category that is often electric.

The official said an additional 610 buses will have “low or no” emissions, while 400 will be “traditional” buses and about 14 will be powered by hydrogen.

The Federal Transit Administration did not respond to follow-up questions by The Hill asking for additional details on the “traditional” and low-to-no emissions buses.

The funds announced Monday, which will also go toward other programs like workforce training, come from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. This is the second slate of bus grants announced by the Biden administration under the law.

 

Republicans are already attacking this as "wasteful spending" and are vowing to cut or eliminate these programs in spending bills due October 1.

A group of U.S. Senate Democrats last week approved funding levels for dozens of federal departments for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1 — setting up a likely clash with House Republicans as a deadline approaches later this year.

The move to advance the spending plan was essential if Congress is going to avoid a partial government shutdown or a series of stopgap funding bills. But the levels agreed to by the Senate Appropriations Committee are significantly different from the ones their House Republican counterparts adopted last week. The panel approved the numbers following a party-line 15-13 vote.

The next steps will include the panel debating all 12 annual government spending bills and later moving to negotiate those with the House. If Congress doesn’t pass all of the bills by Jan. 1, a provision from the debt limit bill would trigger a 1% across-the-board spending cut until Congress approves all the funding measures.

Appropriations Chair Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat, noted the panel is restricted in what it can spend by the debt limit and budget agreement that President Joe Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy brokered earlier this year.

That agreement set total spending for the fiscal year set to begin Oct. 1 at $1.59 trillion, with $886.3 billion going toward defense and $703.7 billion for domestic spending accounts.

Murray said she is concerned about those limits, and indicated the committee will take up additional government spending bills to address national disaster response, border security and to boost aid to Ukraine.

“The challenges we face under the limits imposed by the debt ceiling deal do not get any easier and they don’t get any better if we start going backwards, or if we abandon our return to regular order, or we write unserious bills.,” Murray said.

“And as we all know, chaos only helps those who want to see our government shut down, including our adversaries — like the governments of Russia and China — who are rooting for Congress to descend into chaos,” Murray added.

 

The real spending fight will take place in the months ahead.