Support for the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act plummeted in the days before its signing.
A Morning Consult and Politico survey taken after the legislation was approved in the House of Representatives shows that the package now has less bipartisan support.
Politico explained:
Our latest POLITICO/Morning Consult survey found 50% support overall for the legislation. That’s down from 58% when Morning Consult first asked the question in mid-August, shortly after the Senate passed the bill.
While support among Democrats (roughly 80%) and independents (45 to 50%) has remained relatively steady, there’s been a striking drop among Republicans. In mid-August, 40% of Republicans supported the bill; now, just 22% do. GOP support dropped 10 points over the past two weeks, when Morning Consult surveyed voters after the House approved the bill.
Nineteen Republicans in the Senate and 13 Republicans in the House voted for the legislation. Sens. Mitt Romney (R-UT), Rob Portman (R-OH), and Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) attended the signing ceremony on Monday, during which President Joe Biden called the law a “historic” boon for the middle class.
“I ran for President believing it was time to rebuild the backbone of this nation which I characterize as working people in the middle class,” Biden said. “They are the ones who built the country. And to rebuild the economy from the bottom up and the middle out, this law delivers on that long overdue promise in my view. It creates better jobs for millions of Americans.”
Many Republican lawmakers, however, have been critical of the legislation — and their colleagues’ support for it.
“And I will tell you, in the House, for the House Republicans who voted for this, Joe Biden and the Democrats, their agenda was on the rails. It was failing. It was on the way to going down,” noted Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). “And what those Republicans did is they breathed life into it; they gave Joe Biden a political win. He’ll now go across the country touting, look at this big bipartisan win.”
“And that additional momentum, unfortunately, makes it more likely that they whip their Democrats into shape and pass some multi-trillion-dollar spending bill on top of this that will include, unfortunately, trillions in new taxes. That’s what the stakes are all about. I still hope it doesn’t happen,” Cruz added.
“The problem is the Democrats are now saying we want to go all in with this massive tax and spending bill, which is going to harm American families,” added Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY). “People are going to pay higher prices. They’re going to be higher taxes and, of course, we’re going to see an increase in the debt.”
Beyond additional spending, the bill contains a provision that will force automakers to implement a tool to prevent drunk driving in all new vehicles as soon as 2026. Alex Otte — the president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving — called the legislation “monumental” and the “single most important legislation” in the group’s history, which marks “the beginning of the end of drunk driving.”
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Source: Dailywire
