President Biden vowed Tuesday to rebuild Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge after it collapsed into the water when a cargo ship rammed into it, echoing what some Maryland officials said earlier but adding that he expects the federal government to foot the bill.

“It’s my intention that the federal government will pay for the entire cost of reconstructing that bridge, and I expect the Congress to support my effort,” Biden said in remarks at the White House. “This is going to take some time, but the people of Baltimore can count on us though to stick with them at every step of the way until the port is reopen and the bridge is rebuilt.”

He said he spoke with Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) on Tuesday morning, as well as Maryland officials including its congressional delegation and two U.S. senators. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg traveled to the Baltimore site.

  • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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    8 months ago

    It will surprise no one to know that 2/3rds of this is total factual bullshit (edit: grossly misleading). I touched elsewhere on some of the big substantive things like wage inequality or emissions reductions that have improved dramatically under his presidency, but the homelessness I don’t think had been brought up. So:

    • Homelessness has been going down steadily, and we’re nowhere near the 647,000 people record set around 2007. There was, recently, a big jump up between 2018 and 2020. I guess Biden really fucked up letting it get away from him during that time before we leveled off the growth again just recently? (Edit: This is 100% wrong – homelessness did in fact spike to record levels in 2023 after the end of that chart, when Covid aid ran out)
    • 2023 was, as far as I know, the biggest year for strikes in history. If Biden’s a strike breaker he’s doing a real shitty job at it. He did break the rail strike which would have done some amount of damage to the wider economy (you know, the inflation that some people like to blame Biden for?), but after that happened his labor department kept working the issue with the railroads and got the workers the sick days they were striking for in the first place.

    Record oil production is accurate. I would balance that against the war in Ukraine, record inflation, his positive action on the emissions side which is the biggest single action a US president has ever taken on the climate… but yes there’s some amount of actual nuance and judgement there. The other two bullet points are respectively purely made up and grossly unfair, though.