By Bill Salisbury, Pioneer Press — Nov 30, 2021
President Joe Biden promoted his recent $1.2 trillion infrastructure law as a way to create jobs and train highly skilled and well-paid workers during a campaign-style speech at Dakota County Technical College in Rosemount on Tuesday.
In his first visit to Minnesota since his election to the presidency, Biden said the law that he signed last week will build roads, bridges, public transit, internet connections, ports and airports that will restore America’s claim as a world economic leader.
Speaking to a hand-picked audience in the college’s massive heavy-duty truck shop, he said that since signing the law he has been “trucking all over the country to show” it “will change lives for the better. … The impact will last for generations.”
Biden’s speech at the college was part of a burst of campaign-style appearances that he is making to try to persuade voters that the infrastructure law will actually improve their lives. He said the once-in-a-generation investment will pump money into the economy and provide good-paying jobs that will vastly upgrade the nation’s aging infrastructure.
Minnesota state and local governments are projected to receive $6.8 billion in federal grants over the next decade, including $4.8 billion for roads and bridges, according to the White House.
“It starts with road and bridges,” the president said, noting that Minnesota has 661 bridges and about 5,000 miles of highways that are in “poor condition.”
“It might fix the County Road 42 train crossing,” a source of traffic jams in Rosemount, Biden said, sparking cheers from the audience.
All the improvements will provide jobs for students like those Dakota County Tech trains in such areas as construction management and trucking, he said.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Angie Craig said she invited the president to deliver his speech at the school because of its strong construction management and trucking programs.
Craig, who introduced Biden along with Gov. Tim Walz and U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, represents the south suburban 2nd Congressional District, the most politically competitive one in Minnesota. She was re-elected to a second term by just 2 percentage points in 2020.
Republicans charged that Democrats brought Biden into the district to “save Craig’s floundering political career,” as Craig’s 2020 and announced 2022 GOP challenger Tyler Kistner put it.
Biden won Minnesota last year by 7 percentage points over then-President Donald Trump. But since then the president’s approval ratings have sunk to a new low of 42 percent, on average, according to a Real Clear Politics summary of 15 national polls conducted in November.
The president opened his Rosemount speech by renewing his plea for Americans to take steps to limit the spread of the virus, including getting vaccinations and booster shots. “Get it done today,” he said.
Most of the approximately 100 invited guests in the crowd were supportive state and local government officials, educators and other community leaders.
Before delivering his remarks, Biden met with a group of students in a garage housing a bulldozer, backhoe and a tanker truck, the Associated Press reported. He stressed the importance of education as part of the infrastructure package.
Hours before he arrived at the college, dozens of protesters, many carrying Trump signs and American flags, lined the four-lane highway across from the campus.
Republicans generally greeted Biden’s visit with a litany of criticisms, most of which had little to do with infrastructure.
In emailed statements, coordinated bursts of tweets and a morning Zoom call with reporters, leading Minnesota Republicans sought to blame Biden for a host of current troubles, from inflation and global supply chain problems to his coronavirus response and the surge in murders across the nation.
When it came to infrastructure, the criticisms weren’t specific.
When a reporter asked whether infrastructure needs in their own districts — a reason such plans historically have had bipartisan support — outweighed any negatives, U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber, who represents the 8th District that includes northeastern Minnesota, acknowledged that he has projects needing work.
“Nobody wants an infrastructure piece of legislation more than I do,” said Stauber, who sits on the House Transportation Committee. “I’m committed to rebuilding our roads and bridges.”
He seemed to suggest, as others did, that a failing of the infrastructure plan was that it wasn’t big enough — for Minnesota at least.
“If we look at it, a total of one half percent out of the trillion-plus dollars comes to Minnesota,” Stauber said. According to figures supplied in a White House fact sheet on the plan, about 1.3 percent of the total plan includes “new federal investment” in Minnesota, which has about 1.7 percent of the nation’s population.
Biden said the “bipartisan infrastructure law” is a sign he can work across the aisle to get things done. The law passed with solid Republican support.