The Biden administration pumped billions of dollars into roads, bridges, airports and rail — but saw little if any political benefit in the election.
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Tomorrow marks three years since President Biden signed the bipartisan infrastructure law. Since then, his administration has pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into roads, bridges, airports and more. But the White House has seen little if any political benefit from that investment, as NPR’s Joel Rose reports.
JOEL ROSE, BYLINE: For much of the past three years, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has been on the road at ribbon cuttings, photo ops, round tables for projects all over the country, from $400 million to shore up the Golden Gate Bridge to 1 million for a new terminal at a tiny airport in Chamberlain, South Dakota.
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PETE BUTTIGIEG: So it’s everything from these backyard projects to the cathedrals of American infrastructure.
ROSE: During the first Trump administration, infrastructure week became an inside joke in Washington. President Biden took it seriously. He signed a massive infrastructure bill more than a trillion dollars, betting that voters would reward his administration for delivering where others had not. But this month that bet fell flat with actual voters, who didn’t seem to give his administration much credit despite Buttigieg’s efforts to sell them on the law.
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BUTTIGIEG: The most important thing is the projects actually get done. It is more important than they get done than it is who gets the credit.
ROSE: So why haven’t all those projects resonated more with voters? In an interview with NPR, Buttigieg says it’s partly about timing.
BUTTIGIEG: Some of these projects can be done quickly, but many of them, by their very nature, are projects that take the better part of a decade. So it’ll be a long time before ribbons are cut.
ROSE: There are some other theories about why the message didn’t cut through. Voters were more concerned about inflation, for one, or that the infrastructure bill wasn’t ambitious enough.
BETH OSBORNE: These investments are not producing the sorts of results that would get people excited.
ROSE: Beth Osborne directs the nonprofit Transportation for America, which studied the effects of the infrastructure law.
OSBORNE: We’re told that it’s going to bring down emissions, but we just released a report that showed it did not do that.
ROSE: There’s another theory – that the Biden and Kamala Harris campaigns just didn’t talk enough about the law and the jobs it’s already created. Ray LaHood is a Republican who served as transportation secretary during the Obama administration.
RAY LAHOOD: There’s a lot of people working. There’s a lot of orange cones on the highway. There’s a lot of bridge work going on. I think there should have been a lot more focus on the infrastructure bill on the jobs. I think it would have resonated with voters.
ROSE: Nineteen Republicans in the Senate and 13 in the House supported the infrastructure law. But many more voted against it, arguing it was overstuffed with too many pet projects, like South Carolina Representative Nancy Mace. Here she is speaking on Fox.
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NANCY MACE: This bill, this 1.2 trillion dollar infrastructure bill isn’t true infrastructure. Like, if we’re going to do infrastructure…
ROSE: Two years later, Mace was happy to celebrate funding for a new public transit hub in her district.
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MACE: …And the optics of it. What do you want me to do – turn my back on the low country when we can get funding for public transit? Absolutely not.
ROSE: Mace wasn’t the only Republican who voted against the infrastructure law only to cheer its accomplishments later. That was sometimes frustrating to watch, says transportation secretary Buttigieg, but he expects it to keep happening.
BUTTIGIEG: I think what we’re about to have is an entire administration doing that because, of course, the president-elect also opposed this infrastructure package but will, I’m sure, not hesitate to celebrate things that are done because of it.
ROSE: Buttigieg says more than half the infrastructure funding in the bill has been announced. He says DOT is doing everything it can to speed up the process. Buttigieg worries that the Trump administration could try to claw back some of the money in future years, though he hopes it won’t come to that.
BUTTIGIEG: I still believe the jobs that are being created and the infrastructure being improved is so beneficial to so many people. That’s why this bill is bipartisan in the first place.
ROSE: No matter what, it may be a long time before another administration looks at infrastructure as a wise investment of political capital. Joel Rose, NPR News, Washington.
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