WILMINGTON, Del. (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden heads to Baltimore on Monday for a trip meant to cement his “builder-in-chief” credentials, a visit to friendly political territory that stands in stark contrast to the battle Washington partisan over debt.
The event will celebrate the planned replacement of the 150-year-old Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel with funding from the $1 trillion infrastructure bill that passed Congress with bipartisan support and stands as one of Biden’s biggest legislative victories.
The US Civil War-era tunnel is a major bottleneck for passenger and long-distance rail traffic on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, which connects Washington, New York and Boston.
Officials are preparing to break ground on a $5 billion project that includes a new tunnel named after abolitionist and Underground Railroad promoter Frederick Douglass, which they hope will be in service by 2032.
Biden, who is contemplating a 2024 re-election campaign, is eager to tout his bona fides as a bipartisan dealmaker who can push through infrastructure projects to reduce traffic congestion, improve safety, alleviate climate change, boost economic growth, stop inflation and create high -Pay union jobs for people without college degrees.
In Washington, Biden is facing a colder reality as Republicans, now in control of the House of Representatives, threaten to block his economic agenda, bog down his programs in research and block the debt ceiling from being raised to force spending cuts.
Biden is scheduled for a face-to-face meeting on Wednesday with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to discuss the debt stalemate, which threatens to push the United States into an unprecedented default.
Monday’s event brings Biden, a Democrat touting his alliance with unions, to liberal Baltimore in an event expected to be attended by the state’s governor and two senators, all Democrats. He is expected to announce an agreement between Amtrak and a labor group on the tunnel project, according to a White House official.
“Last time I walked through it, they still had lights hanging on a string, roof leaking,” Biden said of the tunnel during a speech to Virginia union workers Thursday. “Everything has to slow down, and there’s a lot of concern that some of that could collapse.”
Biden plans a similar event Tuesday in New York related to that city’s Hudson Tunnel project. On Friday, he will highlight the infrastructure bill’s provisions that replace toxic lead pipes at an event in Philadelphia.
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Mary Milliken and Gerry Doyle)
Copyright 2023 Thomson Reuters.
