Biden Goes On The Road To Pitch 'Build Back Better Agenda'

Biden touts both his bipartisan infrastructure package -- and what comes next

President Biden traveled to McHenry County College in Crystal Lake, Ill., to promote — in basic, common-sense language — the benefits not only of the pending bipartisan, $1.2 trillion infrastructure package he's negotiated with Senate Republicans, but the additional elements of his “Build Back Better” agenda which will likely pass the Senate only with Democratic votes.

“Last week, I was up in Wisconsin to talk about a bipartisan agreement to modernize American infrastructure and, in the process, create millions of good-paying jobs. That’s not my estimate — that’s Wall Street estimates; that’s everybody’s estimate. Millions of good-paying jobs. Not $7, not $8, not $10, not even $15 an hour. Good prevailing-wage jobs,” Biden said to applause from his audience at McHenry. “And here’s what it means for Illinois: You’ve got, like many states — all states — you’ve got 2,374 bridges and over 6,200 miles of highway that are in disrepair.”

Biden described the bipartisan infrastructure agreement as the “biggest investment in roads and bridges since the construction of the Interstate Highway System, literally creating millions of good-paying jobs.”

Biden also touted the fact that the bipartisan plan would “replace every lead pipe and service line in America,” extend high-speed broadband Internet connections to “every single American, rural and urban,” as well as “upgrade the electric grid to make it more resilient to extreme weather and other threats.”

“American century”

However, it's here where the president pivoted in his remarks to the need to fund elements of what he calls “human infrastructure,” elements which Republicans generally rejected in their bipartisan compromise.

This means that Senate Democrats will have to package those aspects of Biden's agenda into a separate, stand-alone piece of legislation which they will pass under a process known as “reconciliation.”

Budget reconciliation bills are immune from Republican filibustering aimed at blocking passage of the legislation.

“To truly win the 21st century and once again lead the world, to truly build an economy from the bottom up and the middle out, to truly deal everybody in this time, we need to invest in our people. We need to invest in our people,” Biden said. “That’s why, in addition to the bipartisan infrastructure agreement that I believe we’re going to get done, I’m here to make the case for the second critical part of my domestic agenda.

“It’s a combination of parts of my American Jobs Plan that were essential and not included in the bipartisan infrastructure plan, as well as my American Families Plan,” he added.

That includes, Biden said, a “guarantee an additional four additional years of public education for every person in America, starting with providing two years of universal, high-quality preschool for three- and four-year-olds,” as well as “two years of free community college for everyone.”

“That can boost the earnings of a high school graduate with low-wage jobs by nearly $6,000 a year on average,” said Biden, whose wife, First Lady Jill Biden, has made her career teaching at the community college level.”The average annual cost of a two-year degree in Illinois is $4,200. Under my proposal, that cost would be zero,” the president added.

Biden said that his plan would also support improved childcare, recounting his own tragic experience as a single father of two sons after his first wife and young daughter were killed in a traffic accident.

“My plan is to provide access to quality, affordable childcare with more childcare centers in community college campuses with new and upgraded childcare facilities all across the country,” he said. “ … Middle-class families will pay no more than 7 percent of their income for high-quality childcare for children up to age five. And the most hard-pressed working families won’t have to pay a dime.

“My plan will also invest in childcare workforce with better wages, benefits, and training opportunities,” Biden added.

Biden additionally said that he wants to do more to tackle the global climate change crisis — while creating American jobs while doing so.

“I want to provide tax cuts for businesses and consumers who invest in clean energy technologies like renewables, battery storage, next-generation aviation fuels, electric vehicles,” he said. “I want to set the clean electricity standard that moves us to a fully clean and reliable grid.

“These steps are going to create good-paying union jobs and spur demand for domestic manufacturing, accelerating clean energy and clean cars, growing our capacity to build those technologies on factory floors with union workers, here in the United States,” the president added.

“And we create a new generation of jobs in clean energy and manufacturing. And I also want to enlist a new generation of climate, conservation, and reliance workers — excuse me, resilience workers — like FDR did when the American work plan — preserving our landscape with a Civilian Conservation Corps. It’s a similar thing,” he said.

Finally, Biden touted the economic recovery taking place in the nation, saying that the creation of more than 3 million jobs since he took office is “more jobs in the first months of a presidential administration than any time in American history.”

“And last week, the Congressional Budget Office doubled their projections of the 2021 economic growth from 3.2 percent to 7.4 percent, and the [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] thinks it could be higher. That puts the America Rescue Plan — and our work is going to move forward to do a lot of things, including — we’re close to defeating the virus,” Biden said. “The last time energy — the economy grew at this rate was in 1984 and Ronald Reagan was telling us it was an American morning. Well, this is going to be an American century.

“With my American Families Plan and the other elements of the Build Back Better agenda, experts and Wall Street analysts have said that we’ll create millions of good-paying jobs for years and decades to come, not just in the near term,” he added.