With several aspects of his agenda languishing in Congress, President Joe Biden is expressing confidence that he will get “a lot” of it accomplished.
On Friday, Biden took a moment to tout the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill he signed into law late last year.
However, he acknowledged that several aspects of his agenda are currently stalled, which has led some progressives to express disappointment with his first year in office.
“There’s a lot of talk about disappointments and things we haven’t gotten done — we’re gonna get a lot of them done, I might add — but this is something we did get done,” he said.
Biden added, “And it’s of enormous consequence to the country.”
Watch the video below:
President Biden: "There's a lot of talk about disappointments and things we haven't gotten done — we're gonna get a lot of them done, I might add — but this is something we did get done. And it's of enormous consequence to the country." pic.twitter.com/Dr79mcZBaD
— CSPAN (@cspan) January 14, 2022
In March 2021, Biden signed a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package, marking his first legislative win.
And after months of negotiations between Congressional Democrats, Biden signed the infrastructure bill in November.
But now, several aspects of his agenda are stalled.
In December, his social spending package, the Build Back Better Act, hit a roadblock after Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) — a decisive vote in the upper chamber — told Fox News, “I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation, I just can’t. I tried everything humanly possible, I can’t get there.”
After it appeared unlikely that Democrats would pass the spending package, they turned their attention to voting rights.
However, due to the filibuster — which requires 60 votes to overcome and advance most legislation — the road to passing voting bills is cloudy.
Biden has called for making changes to the filibuster, which would let Democrats pass legislation with just 51 votes, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote. But, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Manchin have voiced opposition to the move.
