Contemporary American politics is ridiculous. Democrats are complicit. Republicans are much worse. Tommy Tuberville takes the cake.
To make this case, I will tell the history of the infrastructure bill, up to last week’s new chapter.
For starters, national public infrastructure improvement projects are popular. You can see them and their benefits.
In simpler times, infrastructure meant roads and bridges. Now the politicians cannot agree. Republicans are stuck on roads and bridges. Democrats want to harness the popularity of brick-and-mortar for social spending to create better lives for the changing times they envision.
So in 2021, a number of US senators representing both parties took it upon themselves to negotiate a bill defining infrastructure in a collaborative or compromised way that could become law.
In part, they defined it more expansively, to include broadband, electricity-powered transportation and flood control for rising water levels. But they avoided expanding it to include a $1.9 trillion Democratic “Build Back Better” liberal spending wish list.
US Senator Kyrsten Sinema was the lead negotiator for the Democrats. She is now an independent, very likely to be re-elected next year because she has no political party affiliation.
US Senator Rob Portman of Ohio was a key Republican negotiator. He has now retired and is being replaced by a Trumper named JD Vance. Other Democrats were Joe Manchin, Mark Warner, Jean Shaheen and Jon Tester. Other Republicans were Susan Collins, Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski and Bill Cassidy.
The group took a hard-fought deal to President Joe Biden, who wanted to claim the infrastructure as a success, but was stymied by “progressive” Democratic resistance. Biden praised the bipartisan work to deliver something great for America, as he had promised.
Later that day, however, Biden told reporters he would not sign the bill unless it came bundled with the $1.9 trillion “Build Back Better” social spending package that the liberal wing wanted .
The next day, the bipartisan group began to split over Biden’s betrayal. But later that day, the White House said Biden didn’t mean he wouldn’t sign the bill without the other when he said he wouldn’t sign the bill without the other.
The infrastructure remained obstructed – held hostage, more precisely – for weeks.
Then later in the year, days after Democrats lost a major election in Virginia and pondered why, congressional Democrats passed the infrastructure bill without the other.
Biden claimed a big win for himself, even though others had produced him and he had just patted himself on the back and screwed up the works.
Dozens of congressional Republicans voted against the compromise crafted by a coalition that includes some of their own. All six Arkansas delegates to Washington voted against it.
Biden said he would welcome “no” voters to groundbreaking ceremonies.
Thus, over the past few days, money has begun to be authorized under the bill. Arkansas will receive a little more than $1 billion for rural Internet.
Alabama will get similar manna. That prompted U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a football coach who didn’t know all three branches of government and has held back military promotions because he thinks it’s cool that a senator can do that, to issue a statement celebrating the big ‘Crucial’ funding news for Alabamians … that he voted against.
In Arkansas, US Senators Tom Cotton and John Boozman proudly touted projects funded under this bill they voted against.
In South Carolina, Republican U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace joined in announcing the receipt of infrastructure money that would convert Charleston’s public transit fleet to an all-electric fleet. Not only had he voted against the infrastructure bill, he had specifically derided the “green” initiatives on it as items on a “socialist bucket list.”
She revealed, as did Tuberville’s handlers, who referred to him as a “coach,” not a senator, that the GOP’s talking point will essentially be this: If Congress makes the mistake of send stupid money to the states, then they will reserve the right to be happy when their states get their shares.
So, to conclude: Biden is claiming as his own an infrastructure bill that others produced from the center in defiance of both parties. Some of those who did are gone or in political trouble: Sinema in Arizona, Joe Manchin in West Virginia, and perhaps others.
Republicans are running ads as if to credit themselves for programs they opposed.
And for the record: Defendant Donald Trump urged Republicans at the time to defeat the infrastructure bill, apparently because Biden would take the credit and it would be better for Trump if Biden instead languished in ineptitude.
Somehow, through all this bad politics, it’s good that broadband is coming to the woods; that electric buses are rolling into Charleston; that Louisiana’s flood fortification is in the works, and that roads, bridges and trails will soon improve in Arkansas.
John Brummett, whose column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, is a member of the Arkansas Writers’ Hall of Fame. Email him at jbrummett@arkansasonline.com. Read his Twitter feed @johnbrummett.
