By Jonathan Bernstein / Bloomberg Opinion
Federal awards to states for expanding broadband access are out, and U.S. senators are rushing to brag about the money their states will receive, including those like Texas Republican John Cornyn and others who opposed the bipartisan infrastructure bill that contained the funding they’re now lauding.
Their boasting produced plenty of mockery by Democrats, including President Biden, who called out Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., repeatedly on Wednesday.
“There’s a guy named Tuberville, senator from Alabama, who announced that he strongly opposed the legislation. Now he’s hailing its passage,” the president said, while also reading Tuberville’s tweet aloud.
Biden paused briefly afterward to make the sign of the cross, drawing laughter and applause from the crowd.
Look, of course it’s fair game for the president to tweak those who voted against something and now take credit for it. But I’ll defend what these senators are doing.
For one thing, it’s not unusual for members of Congress to strongly support one or more provisions of a complex bill but wind up voting against the overall legislation. While it doesn’t appear to apply here, it also isn’t unheard of for a senator to insert something into a bill — to be the one primarily responsible for an entire section of piece of legislation — and still vote against the bill for other reasons. That happened with dozens of provisions of the Affordable Care Act in 2009, with Republicans adding pet ideas to the omnibus bill that wound up passing on a party-line vote. In those cases, there’s really nothing wrong with claiming credit for what is a real accomplishment.
More broadly, however, at best this is a case of hypocrisy, and hypocrisy is a very minor sin in politics. Yes, being part of the vote-no-brag-yes caucus might be awkward, but it’s really just normal representation; making promises to constituents, acting with those promises in mind and then explaining what’s happening in the context of the original promises. Cornyn and Tuberville support goodies for their states, and there’s nothing much wrong with touting those goodies when they get the chance.
So score this one a draw: It’s fine for the senators to do what they’re doing, and it’s fine for Biden to mock them.
Beyond that, whether the White House realizes it or not, Republicans who opposed the infrastructure bill now bragging about the spoils is actually good for Biden. The president has been trying to convince voters that he’s been accomplishing things on their behalf, especially when it comes to the economy. But he’s up against a blizzard of negativity, with high-profile Republicans and Republican-aligned media using relentless negative talking points, and the “neutral” press following the media norm of all economic news is bad. Between that and the hangover from the pandemic, views of the economy — and therefore Biden — have been worse than the raw numbers this year, with inflation falling and the jobs market still robust.
Moreover, it’s always hard for presidents to get credit for legislative accomplishments. If something fails, it becomes a negative. But if it’s smoothly implemented and popular it immediately becomes just another part of the status quo. Voters have notoriously short memories. And everyone but the strongest partisan supporters tend to tune out presidential cheerleading for the economy or for specific actions, figuring that the White House — any White House — will always put the best face on things.
But having Republican senators, and specifically Republicans so opposed to Biden that they voted against an infrastructure bill that had plenty of support from their party now touting a White House success story? That’s the kind of publicity, if repeated enough, that might really convince voters that things are getting done and government is working. And if Republicans also tout the jobs that the infrastructure law is producing, that might convince Americans that the economy is actually pretty good.
(At the very least, it might produce one of those rare periods, such as middle of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, the last six years of Bill Clinton’s presidency, and the first three years of Donald Trump’s presidency — I think that’s it over the past 55 years or so — when the neutral media actually acknowledged there was mainly good news about the economy.)
A fight over whether a Republican senator is a hypocrite might entertain partisan Democrats who are sure to vote for Biden. But a fight over who deserves credit for all the good stuff happening in the nation? That’s a fight that’s structured so that the White House has to win.
Jonathan Bernstein is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics and policy. A former professor of political science at the University of Texas at San Antonio and DePauw University, he wrote A Plain Blog About Politics.
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