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Biden's infrastructure bill, explained

Biden's infrastructure bill, explained

Infrastructure week, at last.

For 4 years, the Trump administration promised and failed to deliver transformational investments in the nation’s physical infrastructure. Even before 45, Congress’s chronic inability to pass an infrastructure bill despite high levels of public support had become a running joke in Washington.

That ended late last Friday when Congress passed the first of two major fiscal bills President Joe Biden campaigned on. “We did something that’s long overdue, that long has been talked about in Washington, but never actually been done,” Biden said on Saturday.

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Progress on infrastructure bill despite Senate vote against it
Progress on Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill Despite Senate Vote | US Politics :60s | GZERO Media

Progress on infrastructure bill despite Senate vote against it

Get insights on the latest news in US politics from Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi barred two Republican members from serving on the Jan. 6 commission. What's going on?

Well, the Jan. 6 commission was designed to be a bipartisan commission, taking input from members from Democrats and Republicans. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had the opportunity to make recommendations but the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, could always veto those recommendations. In this case, she did, saying no to two members, Jim Banks and Jim Jordan, both of whom are strongly aligned with President Trump and who voted against certifying the election results in 2020. The Republicans for the most part see the Jan. 6 commission as an opportunity to score political points against them, and the Democrats say this is going to be a fair, non-biased, and nonpartisan investigation into what happened on Jan. 6, starting with a hearing next week with some of the police officers who were involved in the battle with the protesters inside the Capitol.

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Democrats need to be united to pass $3.5 trillion budget plan
Democrats Need to be United to Pass $3.5 Trillion Budget Plan | US Politics In :60 | GZERO Media

Democrats need to be united to pass $3.5 trillion budget plan

Get insights on the latest news in US politics from Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington:

What are the details of the Democrats' proposed $3.5 trillion budget blueprint?

Well, the Democrats this week in the Senate Budget Committee agreed to move forward with the plan to spend $3.5 trillion spread out over about 10 years on a huge portion of President Biden's Build Back Better Plan. This comes on top of a bipartisan agreement, at least in principle, on another $600 billion in physical infrastructure, which is roads, bridges, tunnels, repair, broadband deployment and a whole bunch of other physical infrastructure spending that Republicans and Democrats agree they want to do but aren't clear on how they want to pay for. But on the $3.5 trillion in spending, this is a lot of new social services, it's extending a number of tax subsidies that are going to low-income families and families with kids as part of the American Rescue Plan, which was the Biden stimulus bill that passed earlier in the year. It also includes money for two years of community college, universal preschool, and expands Medicare to cover things like dental benefits and other things that Medicare currently doesn't pay for.

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