Tangle - Biden gets his infrastructure bill.

I’m Isaac Saul, and this is Tangle: an independent, ad-free, subscriber-supported politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from across the political spectrum on the news of the day — then “my take.”

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Today's read: 13 minutes.

We're explaining the infrastructure bill that passed, what is in it, why Republicans voted for it and what it means for progressives. Plus, a question about turnout in the Virginia election.

Photo: Gage Skidmore / Flickr

A weekend hit.

On Friday, I published a subscribers-only edition explaining the supply chain chaos in detail, the major risks it poses to the global economy and exactly why it's happening. It quickly became one of the most popular and well-received pieces I've written in the last couple of months, so I wanted to plug it again today. You can read it by clicking here.

Quick hits.

1. Igor Danchenko, a key source for the Steele dossier, was arrested and charged with five counts of lying to the FBI. It's the third indictment in special counsel John Durham's investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe. (The indictment)
2. The U.S. economy added 531,000 non-farm jobs in October, beating predictions by more than 80,000. The lackluster September jobs report was also revised upward, and unemployment fell from 4.8% to 4.6%. (The numbers)
3. A federal court suspended the Biden administration's January Covid-19 vaccine and testing mandates for private companies while legal challenges proceed. (The ruling)
4. Eight people died and a dozen more were injured in a stampede during rap star Travis Scott's concert in Houston, Texas. (The tragedy)
5. The U.S. reopened its borders for vaccinated foreigners, ending more than 18 months of restrictions. (The reopening)

Today's topic.

Infrastructure. On Friday, the House of Representatives passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill after months of negotiations. The bill had already passed the Senate 69-30, and will now head to President Biden's desk to become law. The bill passed by a 228-206 vote, with six progressive Democrats voting against it and 13 Republicans voting for it.

The progressives who objected — Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Cori Bush (D-MO), Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) — voted against the bill because of a lack of a vote on the Build Back Better social spending bill, which Democratic leadership had promised. The two bills were supposed to be passed in near-simultaneous fashion to ensure support from progressives and moderates in the party.

The 13 Republicans who voted for the bill were Reps. Don Bacon (R-NE), Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Rep. Andrew Gabarino (R-NY), Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH), Rep. John Katko (R-NY), Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY), Rep. David McKinley (R-WV), Rep. Tom Reed (R-NY), Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ), and Rep. Don Young (R-AK).

The chair of the progressive caucus, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), supported the bill after she secured a promise from moderates that there would be a vote on the larger spending bill when the Congressional Budget Office comes back with a score on how much it will cost.

The bill is the largest piece of transportation spending in U.S. history. It includes $555 billion of new spending over 10 years, with a topline cost of $1.2 trillion.

Here is what's in the bill, via The Associated Press:

• $110 billion to repair the nation’s highways, bridges and roads. $40 billion of that is for bridges, and the White House says 173,000 total miles of highway and major roads are in poor condition.
• $66 billion to improve Amtrak service in the Northeast Corridor and add new intracity routes across the country, the largest federal investment in passenger rail service since Amtrak was founded 50 years ago.
• $65 billion for broadband internet access that aims to improve internet services for rural areas, low-income families and tribal communities.
• $65 billion to improve the reliability and resiliency of the power grid. Money will also be invested in carbon capture technologies and more environmentally friendly electricity sources like clean hydrogen.
• $55 billion on water and wastewater infrastructure, including $15 billion to replace lead pipes used for drinking water.
• $39 billion for public transit in the legislation will expand transportation systems, improve accessibility for people with disabilities and provide dollars to state and local governments to buy zero and low-emission buses.
• $25 billion to improve runways, gates and taxiways at airports, as well as to upgrade aging airport control towers.
• $21 billion to clean up Superfund and brownfield sites, reclaim abandoned mine land and cap orphaned gas wells.
• $7.5 billion to build electric vehicle charging stations across the country and another $5 billion for the purchase of electric school buses and hybrids.

Democrats plan to pay for the bill by tapping $210 billion in unspent COVID-19 relief aid and $53 billion in unemployment insurance aid some states have halted, along with an array of smaller pots of money, like petroleum reserve sales and spectrum auctions for 5G services. The CBO also said that the bill would raise about $50 billion by imposing new Superfund fees and changing the tax reporting requirements for cryptocurrencies, according to CNN. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates it will add $256 billion to the federal deficit over a 10-year span.

Below, we’ll take a look at some reactions from the right and left. Then my take.

What the left is saying.

The left is mostly happy that the bill passed, though some are concerned that progressives caved and won't get their "Build Back Better" plan.

Michelle Cottle said that it's something of a "partial delivery", but for now, we should focus on the "achievement in hand."

"The infrastructure bill will provide close to $600 billion in new federal spending over the next decade on a cornucopia of infrastructure delights: roads, rail, ports, water systems, bridges, dams, airports, broadband!" she wrote. "It puts $47 billion toward helping communities deal with the impacts of climate change. Jobs will be created, 'the vast majority' of which, Mr. Biden stressed, would not require a college degree. 'This is a blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America,' he said.

"It is also a much-needed win for Mr. Biden and congressional Democrats," she said. "For months, the public has suffered through the dispiriting sight of the party’s centrists and progressives slashing at each other over this bill and the Build Back Better plan to which it had been linked. Both bills have experienced multiple near-death experiences, and many, many Americans were beginning to doubt whether Democrats had what it takes to get anything done. Their basic competence was being called into question, and the rolling spectacle of — altogether now! — Democrats In Disarray likely contributed to the party’s poor showing in Tuesday’s elections."

The Washington Post editorial board said Democrats need to quickly move towards improving the Build Back Better plan, which has "drifted" from what it was supposed to be.

"After months of internal negotiations, Democrats have ended up with a bill that fails to raise income and corporate tax rates and does nothing on inheritances," they wrote. "Worse, the third-most expensive provision in their bill is a loosening of the cap on the deduction for state and local taxes, a payoff to high-income Americans in high-tax states. Democrats now propose funding the bill through corporate tax reforms that do not raise overall rates, a surtax on income over $10 million and enhanced Internal Revenue Service tax enforcement. This may bring in revenue, but not nearly enough to pay for the programs if they become (as Democrats hope) permanent. And it falls short of the original goal: tax reform that responds to the nation’s extreme wealth inequality.

"On the spending side, the Democrats now propose extending an enhancement of the child tax credit, which slashed childhood poverty, for only a single year," the board added. "Fixes to the Affordable Care Act would run only four years. The Democrats’ marquee universal prekindergarten program would get only six years of funding. The early expirations make these programs seem cheaper than they really are. The calculation is that future Congresses will refuse to allow popular benefits to expire, and the danger is that future lawmakers will use budget gimmicks or debt to renew them. They should focus on programs that have been proved to work and help those most in need: the child tax credit and earned-income tax credit and the Affordable Care Act, first and foremost."

In The Daily Beast, Matt Lewis said progressives "folded like a cheap suit."

"They went from saying they would pass a bipartisan infrastructure bill only after the Senate passed a $3.5 trillion social spending bill to passing that bill in exchange only for an agreement for a House bill on a half-sized $1.75 trillion package if the Congressional Budget Office agrees it would pay for itself and knowing that there’s little chance even if that happens that it will make it through the Senate intact," Lewis wrote. "Progressives and Nancy Pelosi can dress this up however they like. But the trade House Democrats made was passing a mainstream, popular bill that will become law, in exchange for some progress on a sprawling progressive bill that won’t—at least not anytime soon and certainly not without major overhauls.

"It’s baffling to me why progressives ended up holding out just long enough to help torpedo Democrats’ chances in the Virginia governor’s race—and then acceded to this vote just days later," Lewis wrote. "My only theory is that they feared being blamed for the loss (which explains why Jayapal started signaling the decision to back down on Monday), but couldn’t get the votes in before Friday."

What the right is saying.

The right is supportive of elements of the infrastructure bill, but frustrated that it was conservatives who helped push Biden's agenda forward.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board said the divided Democratic party was "rescued" by 13 Republicans.

"With their narrow House majority, Democrats couldn’t pass the bill themselves after six left-wing Members voted no," the board said. "Without those GOP votes, the bill would have failed and Democrats would have suffered another political defeat and more recriminations. Instead, Democratic leaders are moving ahead fast to focus on their $4 trillion entitlement spending and tax bill that is now more likely to pass. The country needs spending on such public works as roads and bridges, and some projects will offer an economic return on the investment. But this bill throws money at far more than that, with only $110 billion reserved for this traditional infrastructure.

"The bill includes tens of billions in public broadband subsidies that will preempt private investment," the board added. "Amtrak gets a $66 billion bailout that should be enough to build a high speed line in the Northeast corridor but almost certainly won’t because of union and political stipulations. Some $16 billion will go to a national rail network that is unnecessary and bleeds money. The bill is also a large down payment on the Green New Deal... This will be a festival of corporate welfare serving political interests rather than the best return on investment.”

In The National Review, Philip Klein said the 13 Republicans committed an "utterly disgraceful" act.

"[Democrats'] goal has been to pass trillions of dollars of new spending at a time when debt as a share of the economy is at historic levels rivaled only by the fight against World War II. The strategy all along was for Democrats to win over some Republicans to their cause by creating a charade that their agenda was actually divided into two parts: a physical infrastructure bill, and a sweeping social-welfare bill," Klein wrote. "This is a substantively bad decision that is political malpractice. It represents a betrayal.

"The federal government already spends more than enough on infrastructure to meet our needs and the COVID-19 bailout money left many states awash in cash," Klein wrote. "Despite promises, only a small portion of the bill focuses on traditional infrastructure such as fixing roads and bridges and the legislation (soon to be law) will add $256 billion to deficits. It will also help grease the wheels for the passage of the larger multi-trillion welfare bill that will expand Medicare and Obamacare, initiate a federal takeover of preschool and child care, and impose economically devastating tax increases on individuals and businesses. Politically, it’s unclear what Republicans are thinking."

In Fox News, David Marcus said "many conservatives are outraged at the defectors who crossed the aisle, but maybe they shouldn’t be."

"There were basically three possible outcomes for the bills. The first was that neither passes. This was always a long shot, as evidenced by only six of the 40 members of the Progressive conference voting no," Marcus said. "A second scenario was that both bills pass as is. That is still a possibility, but even if more moderate House Democrats fold after the Build Back Better is scored by the Congressional Budget Office in the coming weeks, that still doesn’t solve the problem of objections from Sens. Joe Manchin, (D-WV), and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ)... The final possible outcome, and one that seems most likely, is that Build Back Better sees significant cuts now that the progressives are no longer holding the infrastructure bill hostage. This is the outcome the 13 GOP defectors are counting on.

"It’s also worth noting that six of the 13 Republicans who voted yes were from New York or New Jersey, both states that see huge boons in the bill, including $10 billion for the Metropolitan Transit Authority. People may scoff at Rep. Nicole Malliotakis 'selling out' for HOV lanes on the Staten Island Expressway, but you know who doesn’t scoff at it? Her voters on the island who drive on that parking lot," Marcus wrote. "Now the fight moves to Build Back Better, a far more dangerous package in that it introduces entitlements likely to last forever if they are passed."

My take.

This is what I imagined the Biden presidency would look like: Tangible legislation passes on "kitchen table” issues like crumbling roads, and it makes just about everyone unhappy: Republicans, progressives, and even some moderate Democrats. In a vacuum, one could argue that this is what a lot of people voted for. Even The Wall Street Journal editorial board conceded: "The silver lining of the infrastructure bill is that some projects will be worthwhile while most of it is one-time spending that will end." It got 19 Republican Senate votes and 13 Republican votes in the House, which gives it some "bipartisan credibility." And it pissed off the "far-left" along the way. That's basically what Biden ran on, more or less.

The Republican rationale for voting for this bill is not a mystery. For one, as Marcus noted, half the Republicans who voted for it are from New York or New Jersey, and it's clear they think the Amtrak investment — as well as the other public transportation money — is going to help them and their constituents directly. For them, it's a political win, even if it enrages some conservative pundits. Their job is to serve their constituents, not the punditocracy.

Of course, their defense for voting on it in the national political context is simple too. Nicole Malliotakis, the New York Republican, said she voted for it because it took away strength from the progressives. “I weakened their hand. They have no leverage now,” she told Axios. “I voted against AOC and the squad tonight.”

Far-left Democrats are indeed in a tough spot. The larger Build Back Better plan is now in a vacuum, and progressives won't be able to threaten sinking the must-have infrastructure bill when they don't get everything they want. It's already been cut in half, and we'll see what else gets whittled down (or out) in the coming weeks. Progressives said they wouldn't vote on this infrastructure bill without a vote on BBB. Then 90% of them did. As Matt Lewis wrote above, it's hard to see that as anything but a cave.

As for the actual bill, I've said it was a net good for months and nothing major enough was altered in the last minutes for me to change my mind. My favorite parts of the bill remain intact: Our roads and bridges need repair, and now they should get it. Increasing access to the internet in rural and low-income communities is a critical and long overdue investment in leveling the digital playing field in 2021 — one that will bring more consumers, students, and business creators online over the long haul. That we still have water pipes made from lead is a national embarrassment, and this bill gets a giant step closer to changing that.

Concerns about the budget and adding to the deficit are fair. But let's not overstate them, either. $256 billion in deficit over 10 years is $25.6 billion a year. According to the same CBO scoring this bill, Trump's tax cuts added $1.9 trillion in deficits over 10 years, even after taking into account the hoped for growth impacts. That's $190 billion a year, meaning in 18 months Trump's tax cuts added more to the deficit than this bill will over 10 years.

For Biden, the deal is a solid win, but it comes a week too late. What happens with Build Back Better will almost certainly define his presidency, but it's hard to imagine anyone driving the agenda going forward who is not named Manchin or Sinema. We'll see.

Your questions, answered.

Q: Concerning the recent election in Virginia, and most US elections, how much of the results can be explained by lack of voter participation?

— Thomas, Westford, Massachusetts

Tangle: In my opinion, not much. While it's true that nearly 50% of registered voters in Virginia didn't cast ballots, it's also true that turnout in this election exceeded expectations. About 3.2 million Virginians voted of the 5.9 million registered in the state. The race looks like it'll be decided by about 80,000 votes. That just tells us it was a close race, one where Youngkin eked out just enough advantage across multiple demographics to win. Many pollsters thought with that turnout, Democrats would have won. It’s tough to say whether more people voting would have helped or hurt Youngkin.

Generally speaking, though, it is worth pointing out (and I do, often) that American voters are still pretty bad at... voting. We trail most other OECD nations in voter turnout, even the ones that don't have mandates. Of the countries in the OECD, we only fare better than Switzerland, Luxembourg, Chile, Latvia, and Slovenia. Given that, it’s fair to roll your eyes any time a politician talks about the mandate they have from voters, especially one elected in a close race, as their “mandate” can be as low as 26 or 27% of eligible voters. But you should really save your ire for the folks who continue to sit out every year.

Want to ask a question? You can reply to this email and write in (it goes straight to my inbox) or fill out this form.

A story that matters.

This is an unusual story that matters, but I thought it was really fascinating: Last week, I asked how the polls could have been so wrong in New Jersey (again) after all the post-mortems pollsters did in 2020. Well, it turns out I wasn't the only one asking. Patrick Murray, the man behind Monmouth University's polling in New Jersey, published a straightforward op-ed: "I blew it," he said. And then he issued an apology — not just to the candidates, but to New Jersey voters, too, before suggesting that maybe it’s better if they stop doing election polls. "If we cannot be certain that these polling misses are anomalies then we have a responsibility to consider whether releasing horse race numbers in close proximity to an election is making a positive or negative contribution to the political discourse." Kudos to him for admitting the failures and explaining them. It's a fascinating piece.

Numbers.

• 65%. The percentage of Americans who describe the nation's economy as poor, according to a new Associated Press poll.
• 35%. The percentage of Americans who describe the nation's economy as good, according to a new Associated Press poll.
• 10%. The percentage of Tesla stock that Elon Musk promised to sell after putting up a poll on Twitter asking followers what he should do.
• $21 billion. The estimated worth of that stock, if Musk were to actually sell it.
• 33. The number of nations who just saw their travel ban to the U.S. lifted.
• 2%. The percentage of people in low-income countries who have received a Covid-19 vaccine.

Have a nice day.

At first, scuba divers in Wisconsin thought all they had uncovered was a giant log stuck in the sand of one of the state's deepest lakes. But they soon realized they had found a 1,200-year-old canoe, carved from a single tree. It took teams of divers days of digging to retrieve the canoe, which was about a mile off the shore of Lake Mendota in Madison, Wisconsin. "Consider cutting down a tree that's two-and-a-half feet wide with a stone tool, and then hollowing it out and making it float. It must have taken hundreds of hours and a great deal of skill," Jim Skibo, Wisconsin's state archaeologist, said. Finding something made of organic material that old and still preserved intact is incredibly rare, and it is now one of the oldest vessels ever found in Wisconsin. CNN has the story.

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