Biden  celebrates “colossal advance” for The US

AFP, Washington – US President Joe Biden celebrated his first major legislative success on Saturday, following the difficult adoption of a vast infrastructure investment plan, but he has yet to overcome divisions in his party to pass the social and ecological component of his ambitious reforms.

“I do not think that it is exaggerating when to that this is a colossal advance for our country,” the president assured in front of the cameras, his face visibly relieved after months of laborious negotiations.

He also said that he would enact this law “soon”, for an amount of $1.2 trillion in investments to modernize the roads and bridges in ruins of the world’s largest economy, as well as correct the country’s delays in the installation of high-speed Internet.

Biden received the final endorsement of Congress on Friday night, thanks to the vote of the overwhelming majority of Democrats, but also a handful of Republicans.

“To all those who feel abandoned and marginalized by a rapidly changing economy: this law is for you,” he launched, praising a “plan for workers” that will create “thousands of jobs” that “will not require a college degree. “

According to the Democratic president, the concrete effects will begin to be felt on the ground “within three months.”

Biden desperately needed the victory as his popularity rating plummeted after a resounding electoral defeat for his party in the key state of Virginia, already a year into the midterm parliamentary elections, in which the Democrats risk losing their tiny parliamentary majorities.

The glass half full

The veteran ex-senator had to demonstrate his negotiating capacity, which had been praised so much during the election campaign against Donald Trump but which until now had not allowed him to overcome the divisions between the left and the centrists within the Democratic Party.

But the glass of his reform plans, which involve an investment of around $3 trillion in ten years to reshape the welfare state, is only half full.

Biden has not yet been able to convince a handful of moderate Democratic lawmakers to also vote for the $1.75 trillion of the social and ecological component of the plan, which provides, for example, daycare for all children, a profound improvement in health coverage and significant investments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Called “Build Back Better” (BBB), that device remains in limbo.

On Saturday, from the White House, the president recommitted himself to have Congress vote for him.

“I will be clear: it is going to be approved in the House of Representatives and it is going to be approved in the Senate,” he said, referring to “a historic investment” that, according to him, will not aggravate inflation or the public deficit and will only increase taxes for the very rich.