The Innovation Act Will be a Bipartisan Victory on Par With the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

     The American Rescue Plan Act having put America's economy on track to fully recover this year, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was a major victory for the American people. It wasn't just roads and bridges: it was a $1.2 trillion investment in railways, securing universal internet access, launching the largest environmental cleanup effort in our nation's history, helping small businesses in underprivileged communities (especially communities in Appalachia and the South), spurring the growth of clean energy technology, and on and on. Contrary to popular belief, the Build Back Better Act is not dead. While the Senate works to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, they are beginning to hold hearings on climate change, care for children and the elderly, and other issues facing the American people. These hearings will serve as the basis for a retooled Build Back Better Act that is expected to be introduced this spring. The most likely path is breaking the bill up into two pieces each around $1 trillion, the portions all Democrats agree on being passed in the spring and the portions there are disagreements on being negotiated through summer or autumn.

     The American Rescue Plan Act and Build Back Better Agenda will be three major economic bills done without bipartisan support. However, President Biden has made bipartisan cooperation a priority. Aside from IIJA, he has developed a Unity Agenda focusing on veterans, cancer, mental health, and the opioid epidemic. Several major components of this agenda, including the ARPA-H agency, the Dr. Lorna Breen Act, and legislation on burn pits, already have been or are in the process of being enacted; the FY23 budget and NDAA will be enough to complete this agenda. Congress is also passing what I like to refer to as an "Action Agenda," major bills that have passed including the PPP Extension Act, the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, the Capitol Police Congressional Gold Medal Act, the RENACER Act, the 2022 NDAA, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, the Capitol Police Emergency Assistance Act, the 2022 Omnibus Appropriations (including the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act), the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, and the Postal Service Reform Act. Meanwhile, the Sunshine Protection Act, the 2002 AUMF Repeal Act, Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, Social Security Fairness Act, Farm Workforce Modernization Act, Workplace Violence Prevention for Healthcare and Social Service Workers Act, Ensuring Lasting Smiles Act, CROWN Act, ALLIES Act, SAFE Banking Act, EQUAL Act, and EARN IT Act are pending before Congress. This is while President Biden's judicial and executive nominees are being confirmed at an unprecedented rate. Even with a 50-50 split, the Senate is moving.

     The fifth major piece of President Biden's economic agenda, and the second bipartisan one, is the Bipartisan Innovation Act. Passed in the Senate in June 2021, the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act is a $110 billion bill; the America COMPETES Act, passed by the House in February 2022, is a $350 billion bill. Both bills achieve the same thing: President Biden is prioritizing securing America's supply chain and competing with China by restoring American manufacturing, buying American, and focusing on farms and small businesses. He has pledged to tighten Made-In-America rules and transition all federal contracts to American businesses; he has kept the first promise and taken the first steps to keep the second one. He has also pledged to create a million automobile manufacturing jobs in the United States: in 2021, a record 369,000 manufacturing jobs were created: trucking and manufacturing jobs had their best year in 30 as farms and small businesses had their best year in a decade.

     The Bipartisan Innovation Act will take the final steps toward keep these promises. For instance, the biggest challenge facing auto manufacturers is a chip shortage, which this bill will invest nearly $55 billion to address. It also invests in things like clean energy, and, aside from creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, this bill will lower costs for Americans. The final price tag will be somewhere between $110 and $350 billion, likely around the $200 billion range, and is expected to be passed by Congress around the same time as KBJ is confirmed to the Supreme Court. The Innovation Act will be a bipartisan achievement on par with the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed in November. If President Biden can pass this bill, the Build Back Better Agenda, and a third bipartisan economic bill, he will have passed more significant economic legislation than any president in any two-year period ever. A word of advice to the president: this sixth major piece of economic legislation should be a wage increase. President Biden is on track to create as many jobs in two years as President Obama created in eight; ensuring these jobs pay well will make a tremendous impact for the American people. The minimum wage has not increased in nearly 15 years, and the last two times it was done, it was done with a Democratic president and a Republican Congress and a Republican president and a Democratic Congress, respectively. We are on track to make real progress for working people: let's show the middle class we mean it.