We Found Bipartisanship In An Infrastructure Place?

The Dumbocrats and Repukelicans have rediscovered the unthinkable.

Bipartisanship!

On Tuesday, the $1.2 billion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act or Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal (BID) passed the Senate by a vote of 69–30. The BID is a result of breaking up the remaining parts of President Biden’s Build Back Better Plan (BBB) into itself and a future $3.5 billion Budget Reconciliation (BR) bill, “which opens the door to health, education and tax reforms,” per Washington Post Congressional economic policy reporter Tony Romm.

Why was the BBB broken up? Because the sole thing the Dumbos and Repukes could agree on was infrastructure, but on a smaller scale. However, the president has said that he won’t sign the bipartisan BID without the highly partisan BR, along with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. So, as fellow Post reporter Amber Phillips asks, why do anything bipartisan at all when it is followed by something widely partisan?

From a political standpoint, separating the two bills allows Dumbos to argue they are bipartisan while simultaneously pursuing their objectives popular outside the Repuke voting bloc. They will get both what the parties agree on and what they don’t-the definition of having their cake and eating it too.

Let them. The fact that the two parties agree on anything at all after years of arguing is nothing short of a miracle. In the past 30 years, there are only a handful of major issues which gained bipartisan support in the Senate, House and across the country: the initial stages of the War on Terror, COVID relief and Supreme Court Justice confirmations 10+ years ago.

A Wall Street Journal editorial (quoted on Yahoo!) adds: “Congress does pass bipartisan bills on a regular basis, but they are typically much narrower measures or must-pass legislation that keeps the government open or the Pentagon funded.”

Think of some of the issues that are not exactly narrower or must pass to keep the government functioning:

• COVID mask mandates/shutdowns
• Police Reform
• Health Care Reform
• Abortion
• Gun Control/Rights
• Russian Collusion
• Election 2020
• Critical Race Theory
• Race Relations
• K-12 education
• Student Loan Debt
• Budget Deficit

These are not even all the most controversial and impactful issues. Can you think of any bipartisan legislation or efforts related to them? Since the mid 1990’s, we’ve been on the Spiraling Staircase Into Partisan Hell™. Every little move towards bipartisanship and sanity has to be celebrated.

Considering where we are politically, it’s the most one could have expected. After the past few years especially, could American civility just snap back like a rubber band and get to a healthy place right away?

Of course not. While the BID is more sleight of hand than actual bipartisanship, the fact it happened at all gives me hope of what can happen in the future-as more people tire of the social civil war we are currently undergoing.

Furthermore, infrastructure might be one of the least divisive yet most impactful issues to tackle first. It’s not as personal as abortion or race relations, but it affects almost everyone regardless of gender, ethnicity, income, religion or politics. There’s less potential for emotion because it comes down to more precise definitions of terms and hard dollar amounts.

When is the last time you used a road, running water or the Internet? Yesterday, today, within the hour, right now? All of those things fall under physical or technological infrastructure, used continuously by millions of Americans.

For something used by so many so often, our system is not so great.

In their 2021 report, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) gave U.S infrastructure a C-, the highest grade in twenty years. Yikes. Slightly below average is the best we could do in two decades? Talk about underachieving. They found that “by 2039, America’s overdue infrastructure bill will cost the average American household $3,300 a year, or $63 per week. When we fail to invest in our infrastructure, we pay the price.” Across 17 categories, our highest grade was a B in rail and our lowest was a D- in transit.

Ugh.

As the Biden Administration added in a ‘Fact Sheet’, we are “the wealthiest country in the world, yet we rank 13th when it comes to the overall quality of our infrastructure.” It’s not that we don’t have the money-we simply don’t spend enough effectively.

While the Dumbos may lose the House and/or Senate in 2022, and the White House in 2024, effectively scraping large parts of the BR Bill, it’s conceivable that large parts of the BID survive, giving a basis on which to build future bipartisanship.

The BID is not a shining new day for working across the aisle, but it’s a start which addresses one of the most important issues of affecting American society.

It’s the beginning of couple’s therapy for the most dysfunctional pair in the U.S.A.

We better move quickly on repairing our infrastructure, taking what bipartisanship we can get.

Otherwise, the Dumbocrats and Repukelicans won’t make it to their next session.

Whether it be by rail, road, telephone or Internet.