A coalition of progressive groups and those that are in favor of the White House’s current plans are launching a massive ad campaign over the next month as lawmakers head home to their districts for the August recess, according to The Associated Press.
The campaign is reported to cost almost $100 million and will focus on pushing President Joe Biden’s recent agenda items.
As the AP reported, “The push being announced Monday, coupled with a wave of travel by the president’s top surrogates, is meant to promote and secure passage of Biden’s two-track infrastructure plan: a bipartisan package focused on highways, transit and broadband, and a Democrats-only budget reconciliation bill for child care and what the White House calls human infrastructure.”
“An outside coalition of progressive organizations launched a war room and is planning to host over 1,000 events and actions over the next six weeks, The Associated Press learned. The goal, officials said, was to bombard the home districts of members of Congress with ads — both televised and digital — to keep the pressure on to follow through on their votes as well as to underscore much of the agenda’s popularity with the public,” the outlet noted.
“Progressive groups are going on the offense as we lead into August recess,” said Danielle Melfi, executive director of Building Back Together, an outside group supportive of President Joe Biden. “We know there is a groundswell of support and we want to show members that while they are back home in their districts.”
“We’re going to use the August recess to build on (support for the president’s plan) by launching a massive push in every corner of the country,” said White House spokesman Mike Gwin, “to make the case directly to all Americans on why this agenda is going to benefit them and their families through lower costs for everyday expenses, tax cuts, and greater economic opportunity.”
On Sunday, moderate Democratic Senator Joe Manchin (WV) said that he cannot guarantee that the reconciliation bill will pass. Some Democrats have pushed for the Senate to pass the reconciliation bill in order for the bipartisan legislation to go forward.
“I can’t really guarantee anybody,” Manchin said on CNN. “And I have not guaranteed anybody on any of these pieces of legislation. Would we like to do more? Yes, you can do what you can pay for. This is paid for, our infrastructure bill is all paid for.”
Over the weekend, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the reconciliation bill was necessary to get the other one through.
Ocasio-Cortez said, “If there is not a reconciliation bill in the House, and if the Senate does not pass the reconciliation bill, we will uphold our end of the bargain and not pass the bipartisan bill until we get all of these investments in.”
“And I want to be clear that the investments in the bipartisan bill are not all candy land. There are some of these — quote, unquote — ‘pay- fors’ that are very alarming that we need to see the language on. For example, some of the language around privatizing public infrastructure, putting toll roads, leasing public infrastructure to private entities, are very concerning and should be concerning to every American,” she continued.
“So, we really need to see that language and see what’s put in there until it reaches — when it reaches the House. Bipartisan doesn’t always mean that it’s in the interests of the public good, frankly. Sometimes, there’s a lot of corporate lobbyist giveaways in some of these bills,” she added.
She also said, “We have a deal. And the deal is reconciliation for the bipartisan infrastructure bill.”