At the latest stop on his tour promoting the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, President Joe Biden toured General Motors’s Factory ZERO plant in Detroit, where he touted his administration’s plans not only as a way to bring America into the 21st century but to reestablish its leadership on the world stage.
Biden spoke after United Autoworkers President Ray Curry, member Yolanda Passement-Thomas, and Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh, who called Detroit the “blue-collar capital of America.” Union leaders have introduced Biden at each stop on his tour so far.
“We don’t have to hurt any other nation, but we’ve got to get back in the game,” Biden said. “If we don’t get back in the game and are able to do it, who else is going to deal with the crises in the Middle East? Who else is going to deal with the Israeli-Palestinian issue? … Who else is going to be the nation that decides that we have to have a plan to deal with the next pandemic and lead the world?”
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Included in the infrastructure bill is $7.5 billion to build electric vehicle charging stations across the country. Biden aims to have half of all new vehicles in the United States running on electricity by 2030, and GM has said its fleet will be entirely electric by 2035.
The appearance was a mix of Biden’s standard stump speech promoting the infrastructure bill, with statistics and anecdotes about how it will help Michigan specifically. Former President Donald Trump won the state in 2016, the first Republican to do so since George H.W. Bush in 1988. Last year, Biden flipped it back to blue — and Democrats hope to keep it that way to stay in the White House after 2024.
“God, it’s good to be back in Detroit,” he said. “And that Hummer’s one hell of a vehicle, man.”
Biden began the speech by repeating his claim that the infrastructure and spending bills would not increase inflationary pressures and announcing that Walmart and Target stores were “stocked up” for the holiday season.
He emphatically repeated a White House claim that neither the infrastructure nor social spending bills would add to the national debt.
“It’s fully paid for — fully, fully paid for,” Biden said. “It does not increase the deficit one single cent. As a matter of fact, it will reduce the deficit, according to the experts.”
Despite the president’s claims, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania found that the Build Back Better Act would result in a net deficit of $274 billion over the next decade.
He also said the infrastructure bill will help the U.S. compete with China.
“China and the rest of the world are catching up,” he said. “We’re about to turn that around in a big, big way. We’re going to be building again, we’re going to be moving again. And folks, when you see these projects that start in your home towns, I want you to feel what I feel: pride.”
Regarding Michigan specifically, Biden promised to make sure the “jobs of the future” wind up in the state rather than in a foreign country, noted last year’s flooding on Interstate 75, and leaned into the microphone as he touted a proposal to offer $4,500 in tax credits only on union-made EVs.
Along with infrastructure, Biden also went over the major points of the spending bill House Democrats hope to pass later this week, including free preschool and child care subsidies.
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“Folks, I’m betting on America, betting on the American people,” Biden said. “But we have to focus on what makes America great. … The middle class built America, and the unions built the middle class. God bless you all, and may God bless our troops.”
