President Biden pushes trillion dollar bills for ‘a rising America’

Howell — President Joe Biden pushed Tuesday to revive momentum for his legislative agenda during a stop in Michigan, pledging to pass two trillion-dollar spending bills that he says will create a “rising America.”

The first-term Democratic president was visiting an Operating Engineers training facility in Howell as he tried to gain support for a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill and an additional multitrillion dollar bill, which he described as focused on “human infrastructure,” being considered on Capitol Hill. The larger bill would invest in child care, housing, higher education, pre-kindergarten education and combating climate change.

“These bills are not about left versus right or moderate versus progressive or anything that pits Americans against one another,” Biden said. “These bills are about competitiveness versus complacency. They’re about opportunity versus decay. They’re about leading the world or continuing to let the world pass us by, which is literally happening.”

The president said the country was at an “inflection point,” and opponents of the legislation would be “complicit in America’s decline.” He described the proposals as essential to improving “economic competition” with other countries.

The United States has “taken our foot off the gas,” Biden said, and other nations are “closing the gap in a big way.”

The speech was a call to action from the president in a swing U.S. House district located in a battleground state. But hundreds of protesters gathered near where the address occurred and focused on the high level of spending his proposals would require. One sign read, “Build Back Broke,” playing on Biden’s “Build Back Better” slogan.

“Our children and our grandchildren are going to be in debt for basically eternity now,” said Meghan Reckling, chairwoman of the Livingston County Republican Party.