Biden seeks to refocus attention to Democrats’ popular policies

President Joe Biden sought to refocus public attention on how his domestic agenda will improve average Americans’ lives Tuesday in Michigan, as an intra party fight among Democrats back in Washington threatened to drown out the message Biden has spent months hammering home.

 “Look, I know there’s a lot of noise in Washington, there always is,” said Biden, “but it seems to me there’s a little more than usual…I’m here today to try to set some things straight if I can.”

“These bills are not about left versus right, or moderate versus progressive, or anything that pits Americans against one another,” Biden said, referring to his dual-track infrastructure upgrade bill and his social safety net expansion bill.

“These bills are about competitiveness versus complacency. They’re about opportunity versus decay. They’re about leading the world, or continue to let the world pass us by, which is literally happening,” he said.

Biden spoke at a union training center in the small city of Howell, Michigan, situated in a conservative county that former President Donald Trump won by double digits in 2020’s presidential election.

Biden traveled to Howell in large part to try to reclaim the core narrative of his first term agenda, his plan to help the United States emerge from the coronavirus pandemic and “build back better” than before.

That bigger story has been drowned out in recent weeks by an ongoing battle between the progressive and moderate wings of the Democratic party, each of which insists on having the final say about what should and should not be included in Biden’s final bills.

Progressives have said they will not vote for the infrastructure bill, which has already passed the Senate, unless the companion social safety net bill has also been been passed through a process known as budget reconciliation.

But fundamental parts of that bill are still being debated among Democrats, chiefly, the top line price tag. Moderate Democrats have demanded the bill not spend more than $1.5 trillion over a decade, while progressives have pushed for a number closer to $3.5 trillion.

Republicans, meanwhile, have relished watching Democrats attack one another, and argued that both bills, especially the safety net bill, will massively increase the federal deficit.

Democrats have promised that tax hikes on the very richest Americans and large corporations will pay for the new social benefits, and that individuals making less than $400,000 a year will not pay a penny to fund these expanded benefits.

But whether that is true will depend on what’s in the final legislative language, which has yet to be decided on.

Instead of focusing on the cost of the bills, however, Biden and the White…