Biden pushes plans as key to keep US from 'losing our edge'

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By JONATHAN LEMIRE and ALEXANDRA JAFFE

HOWELL, Mich. (AP) — Calling opponents “complicit in America’s decline,” President Joe Biden made the case Tuesday for his ambitious building and social spending plans by framing them as as key to America’s global competitiveness and future success.

With his proposals in jeopardy on Capitol Hill, Biden visited the Michigan district of Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a moderate Democratic lawmaker who has urged him to promote his proposals more aggressively to the public. Speaking at a union training center, Biden said he wanted to “set some things straight” about his agenda and cut through what he dismissed as “noise” in Washington.

“America’s still the largest economy in the world, we still have the most productive workers and the most innovative minds in the world, but we’re at risk of losing our edge as a nation,” he said.

Back in Washington, negotiations continue on a pair of bills to boost spending on safety net, health and environmental programs and infrastructure projects.



President Joe Biden tours the International Union Of Operating Engineers Local 324 training facility, Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2021, in Howell, Mich. Michigan Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist, left, and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer second from left, look on. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)


Read more: https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-congress-nancy-pelosi-michigan-bills-548bcd8ad570e5d71ca2c9cff5fdb64d

[BeyondGeography]

1. Stick with this, please

China spent $8 trillion on infrastructure in 2020 alone (that’s right, $8 trillion). And we’re supposed to agonize about a hundred or a few hundred billion a year? Republicans are turning us into losers.

[bluewater]

2. +1000

[Slammer]

4. China numbers game

China spends a huge amount of money on building cities which no one lives in and houses which no one lives in. It's just a way of keeping their 100+ million workers who don't have a permanent home working by following construction projects across the map.

Also, China doesn't follow Western methods of accounting. So things like "spending on the military" and "spending on infrastructure" tend to be whichever numbers are most politically expedient.

[BeyondGeography]

6. Sure, you run with that

Meantime, I’ll assume like most informed observers that China has a pretty good idea of what it is doing and is poised to kick our trickle-down asses but good:

“Right now, China doesn’t need to invest that much more; it has a brand new infrastructure that’s already been built,” Kelly Sims Gallagher, a professor of energy and environmental policy at Tufts University, who served as a senior China adviser in the Obama administration’s Special Envoy for Climate Change office, told Vox.

In comparison, she said, “we need to rebuild the original infrastructure, which is old and outdated, we need to climate-proof that infrastructure, and we need to be competing with China internationally for those global markets.”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/22350402/biden-infrastructure-plan-foreign-policy-china

[Slammer]

8. rolleyes

"Sure, you run with that"

Thanks, I will because what I posted about China is completely true.

[DownriverDem]

3. Amazing

Howell is so repub. Biden only got 38% there.

[Slammer]

5. profits

I'd be happier with his plans to not lose our edge if it included things like guaranteeing the profits of rare earth mining operations in the US and chip manufacturing in the US so that such companies don't close whenever there's either an economic downturn or China floods the market for a year or two.

We're pretty good at identifying bottlenecks.

We aren't very good at preventing them from being bottlenecks in the future.

[slightlv]

9. I'll give you chip manufacturing

but where in the US is there rare earth mining going on? AFAIK, there are only 2 places in the world where you can mine rare earth minerals... china and the Afghanistan mountains. I was convinced our going into Afghanistan wasn't about oil, but about the minerals, but nobody ever did anything about them, so I shut up, took my lumps, and agreed it was about oil. (shrug)

If you know of anywhere else in the world where they can be mined, I'd love to update my inner knowledgebase. I just don't know of any other places... It's not a dig on you, believe me... it's a dig on me. (no pun intended)

[Slammer]

10. Google "rare earth mining in the usa" n/t

[Auggie]

7. Good message IMO. Keep it up (and use the negative to attack repukes).

[BootinUp]

11. Nice way to phrase it. Nt

[llmart]

12. Yet the local media this morning (WDIV) is only focused on the "massive" protests.

This is what we're up against. These people could never articulate what it is they're actually against. It's just that they're against anything Democrats want to do even if it's the stuff they're constantly complaining about such as crumbling roads, bridges, etc.

[HUAJIAO]

13. Losing our edge? Yes, but... Hell, we're losing our democracy!