United States: Due to internal differences, Democrats again postponed vote on Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan

Democrats in the United States postponed the long-awaited final vote in Congress on the $ 1.2 trillion infrastructure investment plan on Friday., defended by President Joe Biden.

There is still no date set for a new vote and The lack of agreement between the party’s left wing and the centrists continues, despite Biden making a strange visit to the Capitol on Friday afternoon, to try to unblock negotiations and resolve differences over the major reforms that the administration has on the agenda.

“I tell you: we will get there”He told reporters after meeting behind closed doors with lawmakers from his party. “It doesn’t matter when, it doesn’t matter if it’s six minutes, six days or six months away.”he added.

The White House said hours before that The Democratic Party has never been so close to resolving their differences, although negotiations between progressive lawmakers and ruling party centrists are shaping up to be more difficult than ever.

Thursday evening, the spokesperson for the Democratic president, who He turned off the lights in the Oval Office much later than usual, did his best to send a positive message. Overly divided Democratic lawmakers came from refrain from submitting to the final vote a financing plan for large infrastructures.

“We are closer than ever to an agreement”, Jen Psaki said in a statement. Corn it will take “more time to complete the job”.

Biden, who cleared his schedule to devote himself to these talks, vowed “Better rebuild” the United States after the pandemic and in the face of climate change. He wants to renew the physical infrastructure and rearm the social support network.

The former senator, whose popularity has declined since the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, and who is struggling to generate popular enthusiasm for his reforms, is expected to succeed on several fronts.

Democrats Divided

On the one hand, there are heavy investments in roads, bridges, electrical networks, fairly consensual, supported by several Republican lawmakers and, in principle, by the Democrats.

And on the other hand, there is a gigantic program of social (education, health, childcare) and environmental spending, which the conservatives do not want to hear and which divides the democratic field.

Its amount, still uncertain, was initially announced in $ 3.5 billion.

The relationship between the two is subject to negotiations rather incomprehensible to the general public.

Progressive Democrats refuse to vote on infrastructure without guarantees on social spending. Their argument: downtown Democrats, once the bridges and roads have been funded, would be very happy to postpone a vote on this other component indefinitely.

For some centrist Democrats, notably the senator Joe Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema, the underlying question is the amount of the social package (which they would like to lower) and the funding (which they question), via tax increases for the rich and multinationals.

But beyond these tussles, the debate revolves around the The very philosophy of the Biden project, which is supposed to make the United States of the 21st century a model of prosperity and stability vis-à-vis China.

For these central Democrats, and for the entire Republican field, the state should not interfere too much, even with the best of intentions, in the privacy of Americans.

Thus, Senator Manchin has publicly stated that opposes the development of a “well-being mentality” In a society where dealing with education, health or loss of income historically comes from individual resilience and even from charity.

For legislators more to the left, led by the senator Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, there is an urgent need to correct the huge inequalities.

And in the middle is Biden, who tries the synthesis, repeating over and over again “I am a capitalist”, but also stressing that it is necessary to support the working middle class.

Democrats control the House of Representatives, but their majority in the Senate is so narrow that any defection comes at a high cost. And furthermore, they could lose that majority in a little over a year, during the midterm elections.

(By Aurélia End – AFP)

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