Biden’s new year pitch focuses on benefits of bipartisanship

President Joe Biden and high administration officers will open a brand new yr of divided authorities by fanning out throughout the nation to speak about how the financial system is benefiting from his work with Democrats and Republicans.

As a part of the pitch, Biden and Senate Republican chief Mitch McConnell will make a uncommon joint look in McConnell’s house state of Kentucky on Wednesday to focus on practically $1 trillion in infrastructure spending that lawmakers permitted on a bipartisan foundation in 2021.

The Democratic president may also be joined by a bipartisan group of elected officers when he visits the Kentucky aspect of the Cincinnati space, together with Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Republican Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio, the White Home mentioned.

Biden’s bipartisanship blitz was introduced two days earlier than Republicans retake management of the Home from Democrats on Tuesday following GOP features within the November elections. The shift ends unified political management of Congress by Democrats and complicates Biden’s future legislative agenda. Democrats will stay in cost within the Senate.

Earlier than he departed Washington for trip on the finish of final yr, Biden appealed for much less partisanship, saying he hoped everybody will see one another “not as Democrats or Republicans, not as members of ‘Workforce Pink’ or ‘Workforce Blue,’ however as who we actually are, fellow Individuals.”

The president’s journey appeared tied to a latest announcement by Kentucky and Ohio that they are going to obtain greater than $1.63 billion in federal grants to assist construct a brand new Ohio River bridge close to Cincinnati and enhance the present overloaded span there, a closely used freight route linking the Midwest and the South.

Congestion on the Brent Spence Bridge on Interstates 75 and 71 has for years been a irritating bottleneck on a key delivery hall and an emblem of the nation’s rising infrastructure wants. Officers say the bridge was constructed within the Sixties to hold round 80,000 autos a day however has seen double that site visitors load on its slender lanes, main the Federal Freeway Administration to declare it functionally out of date.

The deliberate undertaking covers about 8 miles and contains enhancements to the bridge and a few connecting roads and development of a companion span close by. Each states coordinated to request funding underneath the practically $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure deal signed in 2021 by Biden, who had highlighted the undertaking because the laws moved by Congress.

McConnell mentioned the companion bridge “will likely be one of many invoice’s crowning accomplishments.”

DeWine mentioned each states have been discussing the undertaking for nearly twenty years “and now, we are able to lastly transfer past the speak and get to work.”

Officers hope to interrupt floor later this yr and full a lot of the work by 2029.

Biden’s go to may additionally present a political enhance to Beshear, who’s looking for reelection this yr in his overwhelmingly Republican state.

In a December 2022 interview with The Related Press, Beshear gave a combined assessment of Biden’s job efficiency. Biden had joined Beshear to tour tornado- and flood-stricken areas of Kentucky final yr.

“There are issues that I feel have been performed effectively, and there are issues that I want would have been performed higher,” Beshear mentioned of Biden.

Different high administration officers may also assist promote Biden’s financial insurance policies this week.

In Chicago on Wednesday, Vice President Kamala Harris will focus on “how the President’s financial plan is rebuilding our infrastructure, creating good-paying jobs – jobs that do not require a four-year diploma, and revitalizing communities left behind,” the White Home mentioned in its announcement.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was delivering the identical message in New London, Connecticut, additionally on Wednesday.

Mitch Landrieu, the White Home official tasked with selling infrastructure spending, will be a part of soon-to-be former Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday in San Francisco, which she represents in Congress.