NY to Receive $170 Billion of $1.2 Trillion Infrastructure Bill: to Improve Roads, Rail, Airports, and Drinking Water

by Yehudit Garmaise

President Joe Biden said Congress’ passage of his $1.2 trillion infrastructure package will “rebuild America” by improving roads, highways, airports, improve water supplies, and increasing the availability of broadband and other public services, but Republicans worry about the effects of the astronomical spending by the president and the Democratic Congress will have on taxes and inflation.

In 50 years, Biden predicted, the more than trillion-dollar investment will be viewed as the way in which America decided to successfully compete with China. 

Of its $170 Billion allocation, the Empire State aims to use $12.5 billion to improve roads, highways, bridges, and creating electric-vehicles charging stations.

In addition, JFK Airport, LaGuardia Airport, and Long Island MacArthur Airport will receive $1 billion for improvements. The state’s railways will be allocated $58 billion, the state’s clean drinking water will receive $90 billion, and mass transit: $9.8 billion.

Other bills that await House votes are a 10-year, $1.85 trillion measure that would bolster health, family and climate change and a $2 trillion bill that aims to spend on environmental causes and social issues, such as universal paid family leave.

The US House of representatives passed the measure by a vote of 228-206 late Friday, with only 13 out of 213 Republicans, mostly moderates, supporting the legislation, and only six of the Democrats’ farthest left members opposing the bill.

New York Reps. John Katko, Tom Reed, Nicole Malliotakis, and Andrew Garbarino were among the 13 Republicans who signed on to the legislation that will also mean faster ferries, the completion of a lane for high-occupancy vehicles (HOV) on the Staten Island Expressway, and upgrading the city sewer system to better handle flooding.

Moderates, however, first had to force Democratic leaders to slash the roughly 2,100-page measure to about half its original $3.5 trillion size, and Republicans continue to oppose the bill as too expensive and too damaging to the economy: as the spending can create debt that will be paid for by high taxes for the current and the next generation.

Back in May, for instance, while progressive and moderate Democrats negotiated the details of many bills with astronomical price tags, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said, “Washington has gone stark-raving nuts.”

“President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer are losing it. They are spending money like crazy,” he added. “Dear G-d, please, nobody tell the Democrats what comes after a trillion.”

After Republican Glenn Youngkin in Virginia shocked the nation by defeating Democrat Terry McAuliffe to serve as the state’s governor, and Gov. Phil Murphy, the Democratic governor of Nee Jersey barely beat Republican Jack Ciattarelli, and other significant Democratic losses nationwide, Democratic party leaders, who are already worried about losing their party’s majority in next year’s midterm elections, were anxious to produce impressive legislation. 

Voters “want us to deliver,” Biden said, and Friday’s vote “proved we can.”

Although the full extent of the $1.2 trillion infrastructure deal will probably take decades to see, President Biden predicted that Americans would begin to feel the impact of the infrastructure bill “probably starting within the next two to three months as we get shovels in the ground.”