The city of St. is located in the northeastern part of the United States A two-year rush of legislative activity that has the potential to remake the American economy and place Mr. Biden among the most economically consequential presidents ended last week when he interrupted his holiday island vacation to sign a government spending bill.
He was headed toward challenges that could threaten that legacy, including the possibility of a global recession and the high likelihood of legislative gridlock now that Republicans are in control of the House.
Mr. Biden needs to make his new economic laws work as they are supposed to. Much of his economic legacy will be dependent on how effectively his administration allocates trillions of dollars in spending and tax incentives contained in the economic bills that he signed into law.
Mr. Biden wants to make high-speed internet available to everyone in the country, replace all lead pipes that carry drinking water and build a nationwide network of electric vehicle charging stations. In those cases and many others, officials are working with less money than the president originally proposed, a side effect of the compromises he accepted to win bipartisan support.
Federal officials are at times at odds with state and local leaders who control some of the spending from a sweeping infrastructure law and who do not always share the administration's priorities.
Governors will argue about whether or not to fix a bridge. The former New Orleans mayor was tapped by Mr. Biden to oversee the implementation of the infrastructure law. We have to talk about that. We are on our way and I feel good about it.
Mr. Landrieu said this would be a hands-on, elbow-grease thing for the next five to seven years.
Ahead of Mr. Biden's announcement that he will seek re-election in four years, he needs to sell his achievements to voters. In order to strengthen the American economy, the president is going to start this week with an event in Kentucky.
While we have more work to do, and we may see setbacks along the way, we end the year with clear evidence that President Barack Obama is the right man for the job.
Mr. Biden and his family traveled to the Virgin Islands to celebrate Mr. Biden's last year in office. His aides said he was in good spirits all week and that Mr. Biden was in the same boat.
He told reporters that he was looking forward to next year. I'm excited to it.
He made a gesture with his hand.
Since taking office less than a year ago, Mr. Biden has emphasized the positive aspects of the economic recovery. The United States is better positioned than its peers to endure any difficulties in the years to come because of its strong job growth in manufacturing.
Economic events have made it hard for that message to be heard. Inflation reached a 40-year high last year. It is starting to improve but is still above historical standards. The Federal Reserve and other central banks around the world are trying to tame price growth by raising interest rates.
A spreading recession that could consume the United States is threatened by those rate increases. England and parts of continental Europe are already in a downturn. In the event of a contraction in America, Mr. Biden will find Congress unwilling to spend money.
Kristalina Georgieva, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said on Sunday that this will be a tough year for most of the world economy. She said that the US is most resilient. It is possible that the U.S. will avoid a recession.
In his first two years in office, Mr. Biden steered a number of laws through Congress, which resulted in large swaths of his economic agenda.
The bipartisan infrastructure law that was passed in the fall of 2020 is included in the bills. A bill was signed by Mr. Biden last summer to counter China on the global stage.
After more than a year of negotiations with holdout centrist Democrats in the Senate, he signed the Inflation Reduction Act. It raises taxes on corporations and cracks down on wealthy tax dodgers, seeks to reduce prescription drug costs for seniors on Medicare, and spends $370 billion to accelerate a transition to low-emission sources of energy.
The rescue plan helped strengthen consumer finances, according to economists. Inflation was helped by it, though economists don't agree on how much. Global supply chains were snarled as the economy reopened from the swine flu, but a focus on ports has helped. The release of millions of barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve by Mr. Biden helped to bring down the price of gas.
The administration and companies have announced a total of $200 billion in new manufacturing and infrastructure investments, according to the memo. The full package of new laws will drive $3.5 trillion in public and private investment over the next 10 years.
Much work still needs to be done to carry out Mr. Biden's legislation.
Administration officials have sped up that work in recent months, writing new regulations to govern tax incentives, like for cars powered by electricity and fuel cells, and choosing infrastructure projects to fund. The climate and manufacturing laws require the Treasury and Commerce Departments to increase their staff.
The challenges of shifting the nation away from fossil fuels are acknowledged by other White House officials. A member of Mr. Biden's Council of Economic Advisers said in an interview last year that the transition to clean energy would take time. It requires changing some of the most expensive things people buy, like a boiler, a car, and how they cool their home.
Mr. Biden will be happy to see progress on carrying out the laws. He will travel to the Cincinnati area on Wednesday to celebrate the investment in the bridge that has become a choke point for regional and national commerce. The governors of both states, one Democrat and one Republican, as well as Senator McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, are expected to appear with him.
Even though the House is under Republican control, the White House is still hopeful that the president will be able to find more deals to advance his agenda, including paid leave for all workers, universal prekindergarten and tuition-free community colleges.
Most experts think that won't happen. House Republicans want to cut spending and they don't want to raise taxes.
When Mr. Biden was vice president in the Obama administration, Democrats lost control of the House in the 2010 election, which hurt the president's economic agenda.
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