After drubbing in the gubernatorial polls in Virginia, the Democratic Party and President Joe Biden were looking for a victory to show that the party and the President have it in them to push their agenda. They have the bragging rights now after the House passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill on Friday.

The infrastructure plan was the cornerstone of Biden’s agenda for the country ever since he became the President. With 13 Republicans voting in favour of the bill, the Democratic Party had worked out the math and was able to push through the bill. Six Democrats voted against it, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59180745)

The bill was cleared by the Senate a couple months back, but it’s been waiting to be cleared by the House with many progressives opposing the bill saying that it was no expansive enough.

Democrats are confident that they have balanced the progressive and moderate wings of the party by making changes to the social spending bill that will be up next. Compromises have been struck on spending more on child care, universal pre-kindergarten, expansion of Medicare, and climate.

The bill constitutes new spending making it one of the largest investments in the country’s infrastructure since the Great Depression. The expenditure includes over $110 billion to replace and repair roads, bridges and highways and $66 billion to boost rail. $55 billion have been provided for improving water supply and $60 billion for modernizing the power grid. There are provisions for expanding speedy Internet access, too as part of the bill. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/11/05/house-infrastructure-reconciliation-vote/)

The big selling point for Biden would be that besides the boost to infrastructure, the spending would create, according to some estimates, 660,000 jobs by 2025. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/08/10/senate-infrastructure-bill-what-is-in-it/)

It's a shot in the arm not only for the President but also for the Democratic leaders who proved that they could deliver the bills on the floor of Congress.

Read more:

House Passes $1 Trillion Infrastructure Bill:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/05/us/politics/house-infrastructure-reconciliation.html


Biden gets his infrastructure win and education on a new Washington:
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/06/politics/president-joe-biden-infrastructure-bill/index.html