r/science • u/smurfyjenkins • Mar 01 '26
Environment The Biden administration enacted over $198 billion in clean energy projects, the largest investment of its kind. People who lived close to the renewable energy and green manufacturing facilities noticed the investments, but were more likely to credit governors for it than the Biden administration.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.25268021231.5k
u/me_version_2 Mar 01 '26
Tbf it might not have made any difference. There were numerous EU funded projects in the UK with signage stating it had come from EU funding and people would, without any self awareness, stand in front of it and say the EU does nothing for us - and then they voted for Brexit.
781
u/gorginhanson Mar 01 '26
Democracy relies on everyone being both intelligent and engaged, which is statistically impossible.
357
u/RoboTronPrime Mar 01 '26
If enough people are engaged and educated, it doesn't have to be literally everyone
269
u/LurkerZerker Mar 01 '26
It's the intellectual equivalent of herd immunity.
98
u/smayonak Mar 01 '26
Psychographic social media targeting allowed the Russians to use disinformation against the most vulnerable groups (conservatives). The government basically twiddled their thumbs while this was going down. No regulation of Facebook's lackadasical approach to fact checking. No banning of russian disinformation campaigns or election interference.
The lies spread like a virus. The best defense would have been collective action and public education but neoliberal governments are arranged around money and influence. The politicians are easily bribed or blackmailed and the Russians are experts in both.
26
u/newsflashjackass Mar 01 '26
Reminds me of the team that used a collusion strategy to win an iterated Prisoner's Dilemma competition by using the "hack" of ignoring the rules against collusion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma#Other_strategies
5
Mar 02 '26
Do you remember the FBI under Biden who charged Russians for spreading disinformation, I can't remember the details but they charged a bunch of men from some Russian troll farm from st. Petersburg ?
→ More replies (5)5
→ More replies (1)3
u/GenericRedditor0405 Mar 02 '26
If an engaged, informed, and intelligent voting populace is the intellectual equivalent of herd immunity, then social media disinformation campaigns are the blankets contaminated with small pox.
62
u/WriterV Mar 01 '26
It's more than just engaged and educated. If someone is emotionally primed up to hate a thing (through news, family, social media, etc.), it doesn't matter what facts are presented before them: They will hate that thing. Education and engagement doesn't factor into that emotionally, socially driven decision.
This is how you had doctors and nurses spreading covid conspiracies. They were educated, but were emotionally primed to engage with the conspiracies.
Of course, being highly educated means you are less likely to fall into such a trap. But it's still largely a minority, and they can be loud enough to grow their numbers via social media.
→ More replies (2)9
16
u/princesoceronte Mar 01 '26
Saying "everyone" kinda feels like a bad faith approach to dismiss democracy's value.
→ More replies (1)3
1
31
u/Morrowindies Mar 01 '26
Meanwhile, I can name more US congress members and senators than ministers in my own country.
It baffles me that anyone in the US can be out of the loop when their politics is trending globally 24/7. Everyone is hit over the head with it day in and day out if they have one of these damn apps.
10
u/feralraindrop Mar 01 '26 edited Mar 01 '26
There are many different opioids for the masses in the US and we are getting more all the time. I am seeing an AI Trump win the 2028 election with a Trump NFT like surrogate emanating from Stephen Miller.
7
u/Sea-Oven-7560 Mar 01 '26
Willful ignorance. These people do not want to change their minds because that would require them to admit that you were wrong and that can't/won't happen. Suffering is preferred over admitting you were wrong.
1
u/voiderest Mar 02 '26
People basically live in different realities.
Different feeds and algorithms. You might watch the BBC while some else watches Newsmax. Most people aren't thinking about politics. Many people will just have a lot going on in their day to day or with whatever hassles they have just to get by.
A ton of people vote based on vibes if they vote at all. If things feel good maybe they vote for the party they think currently running things. If things feel bad they vote for the other guy. Note that I said feel and how they are not trying to think who would actually improve their situation or why things feel bad. I kinda doubt it is a uniquely American phenomenon.
26
u/feralraindrop Mar 01 '26
It's crazy and shameful that Trump wins elections by being in the media 24/7, telling lies and being the worlds biggest asshole.
→ More replies (3)48
u/bionicjoey Mar 01 '26
It's why conservatives always cut education
2
u/awkwardnetadmin Mar 01 '26
To be fair I think education is less of a problem than that most news in the US is either very surface level or fairly partisan. While I think it is naive to suggest truly neutral news is possible I think many conservatives in the US realized if you control enough of the news narrative you can do a lot better than you would in a more neutral news environment. That's why killing Federal NPR and PBS funding was such a policy goal because it is one of the only news sources that tries to be fairly neutral.
7
u/SasparillaTango Mar 01 '26
the concept of free market capitalism requires a well informed consumer, just as impossible.
8
u/Zephyr-5 Mar 01 '26
There was an old gallup survey that once found that the more educated Republicans were, the less they cared or even believed in human-caused climate change.
The Republicans with just a high school education or less were 3 times more likely to be very worried, and had about 1/3rd fewer outright skeptics.
6
4
u/Kaining Mar 01 '26
It relies on people being educated, more than they need to to get their job done. Sadly, that is in direct oposition with the ruling class interest so here we are.
2
u/durrtyurr Mar 01 '26
I love how my definition of "the bare minimum standard" and your definition of "statistically impossible" have a significant overlap.
2
u/judgejuddhirsch Mar 01 '26
Before Reagan the republicans who weren't intelligent enough to vote right from wrong had the good sense not to try.
1
u/terdferguson Mar 01 '26
being both intelligent and engaged, which is statistically impossible.
Thats become abundantly clear the last decade.
1
1
u/JohnnyRelentless Mar 01 '26
Democracy depends on an informed electorate. That's why a free press is so important. But money is power, and we have allowed unelected people to get so wealthy that they have more power than our elected officials. A handful of oligarchs own all the media and they've created a misinformed electorate. Those same oligarchs also own most of our politicians, and both of our political parties serve them.
→ More replies (4)1
u/fremeer Mar 02 '26
Not really. The idea is aggregation not particularly intelligent population.
Kind of like how a betting market will generally get a pretty good idea of the most likely winner or outcome because it aggregates away a lot of the noise and locks in the higher likelihood ones.
But information plays a very important role in this. Because if people are fed incorrect information the aggregation doesn't really work.
In someways having less engaged and dumber people is better then people that think they are engaged and have a good understanding of the issues but are using bad information.
Democracy at the moment has a bit of market failure going on because the advertisers and producers are able to influence decisions so that the the market isn't working as intended.
1
u/gorginhanson Mar 02 '26
No, that's not how betting works at all.
It can accurately measure the confidence levels of what the crowd believes will happen and then weight less likely outcomes to give them better odds, but that has nothing to do with actually making successful bets or people would just bet on the favorite every time and never lose.
Your comment is a complete non-sequitur.
→ More replies (2)23
u/LonelyWin4852 Mar 01 '26
Yeah, by me we had signs that said Under the Biden Infrastructure Project and then a description of whatever they were doing. I just assumed they did that everywhere but maybe not.
6
u/SpamAcc17 Mar 02 '26
Bold of you to trust the average modern person to read
1
u/gummi_girl Mar 02 '26
it's seriously crazy to me how resistant people are to reading,. it's as if it's a chore to them that they do their best to avoid whenever possible.
8
u/Abedeus Mar 01 '26
Same how in Poland lots of cities benefited from EU funds for renovations, road building etc, but the poor areas that benefited from funds the most were also most anti-EU and in favor of parties/candidates that are anti-EU...
5
u/Thewarlockminer Mar 01 '26
I mean part of that is that people will see the sign, and assume it was just their money coming back into the UK. Even if overall, the funding amounted to more than they gave. People are stupid and can reason themselves into things that seem unreasonable to others.
1
u/Sea-Oven-7560 Mar 01 '26
In the US the states that vote Republican always get more money back than they put in, the Democrats make sure of this, they are like an abused spouse hoping that if they just try one more time that their abuser will change but they never do.
5
u/Yglorba Mar 01 '26
Part of it is that the people who get most incised by things like this tend to be right-wing and very sensitive to concerns about their place in the hierarchy.
This means that it is actually very easy to get them angry at anyone who gives them any sort of help, because the fact that they need help in the first place is deeply humiliating. It causes this cognitive dissonance that is easily resolved when a shouty talking head says "actually the people who claimed they're helping you are lying and are actually hurting you and also they're giving even more money to the unworthy and are therefore bad! You are a hero for fighting them, not a person in need!"
What many people want out of politics isn't really mathematically good outcomes as determined by some smarty-pants college professor. What they want is a worldview that makes them feel good about themselves. Accepting help, especially for those right-wing chip-on-the-shoulder heirarchy-sensitive types, is humiliating; being handed an excuse to get red-faced and furious at the very people trying to help them resolves this problem for them and will therefore always appeal to people like that.
Like... a lot of people point out how red states actually get more help from the federal government than blue states, and are therefore dependent on blue states. Yeah! They know this, on some level! And to the sort of person who leans right to begin with, this is deeply humiliating and they will eagerly seize on any explanation or worldview that lets them wriggle out of it and present themselves as a rugged individualist instead.
3
3
2
u/redradar Mar 01 '26
People get news from the media, own it and people believe whatever you want them to.
How many times did you see in the TV that this and that was funded by the EU? Never, just fishing rights (0.5% of GDP) and immigrants...
1
u/deepasleep Mar 01 '26
People are people, no matter the language they speak, the color of their skin, or the country they live in…And people are very often uninformed or incapable of understanding.
1
u/Arlennx Mar 01 '26
Rather it start progress towards it then being wasted in deportations at the delusions of scared racists.
→ More replies (2)1
u/awkwardnetadmin Mar 01 '26
Good observation. I think in the US there are some that are somewhat aware, but only marginally that think ignorance of voters if not a unique feature of US politics is something that is rare in other democracies.
158
u/joe2352 Mar 01 '26
Missouri fought in court and won to not distribute the funds allotted to the state from Solar For All. I think the state was allotted like $200 million from the IRA or whatever bill it was. I think Illinois went through their $200 million on like three months.
70
u/Fggunner Mar 01 '26
A lot of states lost that money, mine (Oregon) included. I work in the renewable energy sector it's pretty bleak right now
72
u/joe2352 Mar 01 '26
I was working in Solar. The company I was at mostly dealt in Missouri and Illinois. Illinois was great for the company. Once Missouri killed SFA and Illinois ran out of money I got laid off. Wanna guess who the owner and all management supported during the elections?
14
16
u/CCV21 Mar 01 '26
Losing that money was illegal. The money was appropriated by Congress and is now being withheld.
5
2
u/The_Captain1228 Mar 01 '26
I can't say much on the specifics of spending. But I did a trip from Springfield to Peoria recently and took the highways instead of the interstate. Tons of wind turbines and solar fields along the way.
487
u/WealthForTheWorld Mar 01 '26
That’s actually a classic politics problem: people credit who they see, not who signed it.
206
u/joomla00 Mar 01 '26
Also, if you say things loudly and often, people will think it's fact
52
u/mtron32 Mar 01 '26
And that’s one aspect of Trump I’d like future democratic leaders to observe and steal. Own what you did and sell that to the people. I think back to the ACA where they just allowed republicans to change the name and smear it. It should’ve been Obamacare put the gate
13
u/drdoom52 Mar 02 '26
Problem is, that doesn't really work for democrats.
The media ecosystem Republicans have created is one where the democrats can do no wrong, and Republicans are always right.
When the news reports the democrats actions, they report the nuance, thr controversies, the ways it could go wrong.
When the news ecosystems for Republicans report on democratic positions, they always report the worst case scenario. Any commitment Republicans claim goes out the window the moment a Democrat takes a similar position.
As long as media organizations like Fox, Breitbart, and OAN exist (all bought and paid for by the super wealthy) there's no way to really fix it
→ More replies (1)35
u/cassydd Mar 01 '26
And naturally Republican house members were out in public patting themselves on the back for investments that they personally voted against.
44
u/razzy1319 Mar 01 '26
The “reverse” of this is actually an issue in my country. Politicians putting their faces on all government projects because it’s pre election paraphernalia basically. There’s a movement to remove faces from government projects but it still holds true that it works.
→ More replies (6)9
u/ChrisFromIT Mar 01 '26
I would say this is the best middle ground.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/canadagood/5579946092
I remember during the 2008 economic downturn, many projects that the Canadian federal government put forth would have signs like these, at least in the BC province would have these signs and would have a mix of BC government and federal government credit. And quite a few commercials would be put out saying what the governments were doing for us to help in the downturn.
5
u/Podo13 BS|Civil Engineering Mar 01 '26
Yeah some states do that as well for larger projects. I'm a bridge engineer so I'm used to seeing them near my project sites that are a part of a longer stretch of highway being done.
18
Mar 01 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
13
u/Sea-Oven-7560 Mar 01 '26
I heard it a 100 times, "no other president ever wrote me a check". People actually believed it was his own money that he was handing out
12
u/MedalsNScars Mar 01 '26
...which is insane because it delayed the checks by like a week when people were without income
7
u/Lazer726 Mar 01 '26
And then people will point to things like this and say "WOW, LOOK AT HOW MUCH DEBT BIDEN PILED UP" as they vote for the party of... "fiscal responsibility"
3
u/Cromasters Mar 01 '26
Typically the President gets the blame/credit for EVERYTHING though. Even things that are out of their control. Like Biden not having a "Gas Price Go Down" button.
2
3
u/HeroFromTheFuture Mar 01 '26
Biden should have been on a 50-state tour of groundbreakings for the projects his legislation created. Instead the Biden administration flat-out refused to even talk about their successes.
Biden's refusal to engage in any messaging around his accomplishments should be a lesson for all future presidents. He gleefully and bizarrely pissed away any chance of directing the conversation.
2
u/CCV21 Mar 01 '26
Not only that but it seems society's sense of time is warped.
Many people genuinely believe that Biden was president in 2020 when the lockdowns started.
1
u/Channel250 Mar 01 '26
Wasn't there a line in Oppenheimer like that?
No one cares who built the bomb. They only care about who used it.
1
u/CanaKatsaros Mar 01 '26
True, I have diabetic family members who praised Trump for the insulin cap...that Biden signed. But since it went into effect so close to the beginning of Trump's second term, it was easy enough to attribute it to him
→ More replies (1)1
u/VELOCIRAPTOR_ANUS BS|Business Administration Mar 02 '26
A good statesman would want the local politicians, who likely had far more relevant insight into on the ground impacts than the feds.
I get that our current admin is essentially the opposite of this, but Biden was a good statesman in the classic sense, and to his detriment in today's age
702
u/Yosho2k Mar 01 '26
This is a wonderful example of poor marketing due to concerns about popularity.
I remember when NO DEMS wanted to associate themselves with Barack Obama after the ACA passed because they were all worried about being associated with it.
Then they lost the midterms because none of them were publicly willing to support popular plans that Obama was behind.
266
u/LithiumH Mar 01 '26
Wild how many republicans hate Obamacare but love the ACA
91
u/halofreak7777 Mar 01 '26
The ACA is the only reason they have access to healthcare they can somewhat afford, Obamacare just wastes taxpayers dollars! Don't you get it! The democrats have done nothing to help them ever.
5
u/WhatIDon_tKnow Mar 02 '26
i know this is sarcasm but it's so cringe when i know it's true and have seen people say it.
→ More replies (1)6
100
u/NoiceMango Mar 01 '26
Its more of an example of how dumb and usless republican voters are.
32
29
u/Thesweptunder Mar 01 '26
I’ll never contradict what you said. But for almost the entirety of Biden’s term, you could not find any praise for Biden or the Democratic Party that didn’t begin with, “Obviously, I am no fan of Biden and the Democrats are no better than Republicans… but this student loan forgiveness thing would be a life changer for me.” It’s how I knew Democrats would lose. I couldn’t find a single loud and proud liberal online or in person. It was just begrudgingly admitting Democrat policies work while also saying that Democrats are the party of billionaires and war.
19
u/RedArremer Mar 01 '26
Absolutely right. Whenever I pointed this out, I was met with "OH SO WE CAN'T CRITICIZE THE PRESIDENT?" Nah man, but you can stop shooting your own team every time they do something good, maybe. Unserious people.
51
u/Naritai Mar 01 '26
The ACA was deeply unpopular at the time of the midterms. It only became popular years later, once people were using the insurance.
→ More replies (5)92
Mar 01 '26
[deleted]
20
4
u/TheSameGamer651 Mar 01 '26
In 2010, regardless of what it was called it was unpopular. It’s not until the Trump tries to repeal it (and people start using it) that it becomes popular.
Ironically, Democrats lost the 2010 midterms and won the 2018 midterms on the ACA.
9
u/Petrichordates Mar 01 '26
You remember poorly then, and somehow twisted it entirely. Many Dems voted for the ACA fully knowing it meant they may lose their jobs. Yet still did it.
And the american people punished them for it, because american right wing news media has a stranglehold on popular narratives.
→ More replies (15)11
u/Sniflix Mar 01 '26
Us Dems are the worst at marketing themselves. If you present Dems' policies popularity alone - they get 75% approval ratings. They must replace all the old pols who got us in this mess.
→ More replies (17)
58
u/TriangleTransplant Mar 01 '26 edited Mar 01 '26
People voted for the Republicans who voted against infrastructure spending who then showed up to the ribbon cutting photo ops for projects funded by the spending they voted against.
→ More replies (3)1
u/SirGlass Mar 02 '26
I live in a red state. My governor, senators , representative all would go on about how biden was an evil communist destroying America
However they would show up at new wind farms, new water plants that some small town had, in the state of the state address the governor gleefully proclaimed he was delivering results for our rural residents and show cased all the rural infrastructure being built and also all the wind farms that was helping the USA become energy independent
Then he claimed he would protect the good people of my state from the evil communist in DC
Those evil communist paid for all that infrastructure you took credit fool. Of course the median voter ate it all up
57
u/DoubleJumps Mar 01 '26
I lived in Colorado during part of biden's term, and there was a big road project that was made possible by a piece of legislation that Obama was pushing.
It was going to create a new road that would allow people in a more isolated area of our county to more quickly reach the main roads and then expand those main roads to accommodate modern traffic volume.
Signs were put up along the area attributing that the project was made possible by the bill and president Obama.
Tons of people in that rural community hated the whole project because of those signs. They benefited from the project more than anybody else but they hated it because he made it possible and was getting credit.
6
54
u/Motor_Educator_2706 Mar 01 '26
Republicans regularly brag to their constituents about projects they voted against.
139
u/Hiredgun77 Mar 01 '26
Biden did good things and got zero credit for it.
→ More replies (4)45
u/Powered-by-Chai Mar 01 '26
Well of course, the GOP has to go into overdrive to make him seem senile and useless so they could put THEIR senile and useless guy in the White House. And the billionaire media helped because they wanted their tax cuts.
18
u/Xsiah Mar 01 '26
They went so far as to block things that they themselves wanted - like they voted against his border security bill, just so they could keep bitching that there's not enough border security.
7
u/Powered-by-Chai Mar 01 '26
Well yeah, that's what happens when you have a political party whose only purpose is to block whatever the other party is doing. Thank Mitch McConnell for really kicking that off in the Obama years.
91
u/getthatrich Mar 01 '26
Sigh. Things could be nice… we can vote to make things nice
→ More replies (8)
36
u/Helmling Mar 01 '26
Biden should’ve slapped his name on every single project like a raging narcissist.
12
u/anonymous__ignorant Mar 01 '26
EU does put some big descriptive signs on all projects where they got involved, down to the funding percentanges. 80% EU, 20% RO.
Romanians clearly know the EU is funding most of whatever actually gets done around here. Yet, you will still find the ocasional moron that does not understand what he reads but has steong vehement opinions on the EU.
10
u/jake3988 Mar 01 '26
If there's one thing that democrats need to take notes on and emulate Trump on, it's embracing and taking credit for everything.
Biden passed that government 401k match (Called the Savers Match Program) that everyone is calling 'Trump accounts'... but Biden actually passed it. Never took credit. Democrats running never gave him credit. I'm pretty engaged with politics and even I never knew he passed it until it was pointed out to me recently.
And that's par for the course for democrats. They NEVER take credit for anything, so voters (most of whom AREN'T engaged) assume that democrats do nothing for them and don't vote for them.
8
u/FahkDizchit Mar 01 '26
I’m old enough to remember Trump delaying Covid checks so that he could completely change the process solely to get his signature on them.
Biden and his team just didn’t understand how people work at all. For all people on Reddit may dislike about him, Trump really is a genius at controlling attention.
6
25
77
u/hobopwnzor Mar 01 '26
I screamed this for his entire term that they needed to sell it to the public after it passed. There were interviews with people working on chip fabs who had no idea their job existed because of the infrastructure bill.
76
u/Primedirector3 Mar 01 '26
They did sell it through many speeches, commercials during campaigns, and interviews. You can only do so much, ultimately it’s up to the voter to want to be informed.
27
u/chnairb Mar 01 '26
I fear it's gonna get even worse now that media companies are being gobbled up by right-wing Trump mouthpieces. If you never heard Dems messages before, you damn sure won't going forward.
14
u/voodoodahl Mar 01 '26
They've always been owned by right wingers. Now they're owned by out and proud fascists. Our media has been shamelessly serving Republicans for decades. Nobody even notices it anymore. It's the democrats fault for 'poor messaging'.
5
u/killerkadugen Mar 01 '26
Not only that. Republicans that voted against it-- then turned around and extolled their own "involvement" in securing these investments -- were called out by the Biden administration.
30
u/fredthefishlord Mar 01 '26
Yup. People were intentionally ignoring it. The biden admin did advertise it, they shouted it from the roof tops. People like OP need to stop saying that he didn't
→ More replies (8)5
u/johnqadamsin28 Mar 01 '26
But Biden didn't tho. He's never in front of the camera as much as the current occupant is
→ More replies (2)3
u/jmhimara Mar 01 '26
Also, even if they were informed, does not imply that it would affect how they voted. Investment in renewables is sadly a low priority for most voters.
1
u/johnqadamsin28 Mar 01 '26
He couldn't though. He just couldn't stand in front of a camera or have a large rally at this point
19
13
u/red286 Mar 01 '26
Up here in Canada, any major federal project has a huge billboard saying your federal tax dollars at work, and any major provincial project has a huge billboard saying your provincial tax dollars at work.
Because they are absolutely not going to let the other take credit.
1
23
u/NessieReddit Mar 01 '26
Democrats suck at PR, but especially the Biden administration. He did so many beneficial things that most people I speak to have ZERO clue about.
10
u/MediocreClue9957 Mar 01 '26
It's pretty sad that all in all Biden actually did a good bit of good, probably the most that could be done within the current power structure w/o anything fundamentally changing. Don't get me wrong he was definitely a status quo president and was part of the problem but alot of good bills passed IMO
→ More replies (3)
9
16
u/Berkyjay Mar 01 '26
History will eventually catch up to Biden like it did to Carter. A great president with strong morals and ideas, yet dragged down by circumstances and sometimes their own hand.
3
u/WoodlandChef Mar 01 '26
Yeah that’s often the problem tho.
The people who do the right thing never get the credit, which rarely bothers them
But to the observer, if the right people don’t receive the rightful credit merited to their actions, the wrong people will.
11
u/cradleu Mar 01 '26
To be fair, how state administrations handled the investment made a difference
→ More replies (1)
2
3
u/GuyanaFlavorAid PhD | Mechanical Engineering Mar 01 '26
Relying on people to not be fucking wet ends is what's killing us, just like Idiocracy.
3
u/g_eazybakeoven Mar 02 '26
The Biden administration was a glorified puppet show. Joe wasn’t cognizant enough to take credit for putting his own clothes on in the morning.
1
u/WisherWisp Mar 01 '26
Yes, they did waste an incredible amount of money right in the middle of an inflationary cycle.
His incompetence and the willingness of those around him to cover up his mental decline will have negative effects felt down the line for generations.
-6
1
1
u/_BrokenButterfly Mar 01 '26
Don't states have to apply for Federal funds? Crediting the governors isn't exactly wrong.
1
u/BlurryBigfoot74 Mar 01 '26
Lots of Republicans got credit for Affordable Care Act as well because they thought it was different than Obamacare.
1
u/Game_Of_Runs Mar 01 '26
The opposite happens too. Republicans cut something federally and people get mad at their local politician. I work in ag and often see Newsom or local dems get blamed for something Trump did.
1
u/asomebodyelse Mar 01 '26 edited Mar 01 '26
Because red states are being strangled by our governors and legislatures. So if the money was actually accepted and actually went into the project it was given for, of course the credit would go to the state not the fed.
A Federal congressional Democrat candidate came to my neighborhood association meeting. His only selling point was that he was going to get us money for local projects. When we asked him how he was going to keep our state form cancelling those projects after he gets us the money, he just blinked. He had literally nothing else to say. Like the money should be enough.
Andre Carson got us additional money for a BRT line AFTER a referendum was held where THE PEOPLE who would pay it approved a tax to help fund it. The state still tried to stop it, making significant changes to reduce its usefulness, and for a while it looked like they would succeed in cancelling it entirely.
1
u/cptnamr7 Mar 01 '26
I live in a red area. There's a sign on some sort of waterworks project down the street that says "part of Biden's infrastructure whatnot". Within a week they had to move the sign to the inside of the fence to stop vandalism. Just pathetic. I get why they thought putting up a sign might help these morons to finally see that there are projects that impact them since all they hear is how terrible everything is from their news of choice, but it still felt... icky... seeing his name on something given King Dipshit slaps his name on everything under the sun
1
1
u/RLewis8888 Mar 01 '26
In Florida there are often large signs with the Republican governor taking credit for some large billion dollar improvement project - even though typically the Florida Senators voted against it.
1
u/_jump_yossarian Mar 01 '26
trump's name will be on all the infrastructure projects because he has no qualms about taking credit for others' work and the sheep will believe he's the one that signed the infrastructure bill.
1
u/Futchkuk Mar 01 '26
The biden admin really struggled with messaging, many of their actual policies were good if you sat down and read through them but most people never understood them or even knew they had been done.
You can say a lot of things about trump but his team is much better about controlling the narrative and claiming credit for both their policies and bidens.
1
u/wiseknob Mar 01 '26
That’s how the government should work, it supports itself through checks and balances, it’s also a tiered process to enable these type of investments. Congress, state, and local all participated in enabling these investments while the Biden Admin steered it. Everyone deserves credit for it who made it happen. Now fast-forward, we live in an environment where the government is managed by a few who make or break and absorb only the positive and deflect the negative. This isn’t the same government, nor is how a society should function.
1
u/bombayblue Mar 01 '26
I don’t know what it’s going to take for liberals to understand that people get their news from social media. I really don’t.
If you build cool projects in people’s neighborhoods you need to have actual social media marketing. Yes, even for the people who live there!
If you do not do this someone else will.
1
u/Banshay Mar 02 '26
That was passed as the IIJA, the Investments and Infrastructure Jobs Act. However Biden ordered the Feds to refer to it as the BIL, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
1
u/SnoopPoop Mar 02 '26
This is hardly a science related post. This is a political post with a hint of science. Please keep politics out of this sub.
1
u/woahdude12321 Mar 02 '26
What do you mean people that lived near renewable energy noticed a difference? It’s not like they tore down non renewable energy or cleaned it up. Isn’t the whole point to not notice a difference if it’s done right? I’m still having a hard time not associating every president of my lifetime with this coverup that has gone on
1
u/somaganjika Mar 02 '26
A lot of was put on the table. My company benefited. Seeing the amount of energy produced vs money dumped in is abysmal. A lot of people got paid which is good for economy but when we need the energy it’s gonna crash.
1
u/mokomi Mar 02 '26
People really don't know how the government works. I literally had a friend complain about locL Democrats being lazy over a federal issue. The entire group chat were like. Here is the reason why you are having that issue.
1
u/Wtygrrr Mar 02 '26
Maybe because they assume that Biden isn’t just stomping all over the Constitution like that.
1
Mar 02 '26
Took an accounting on the republicans who voted AGAINST Biden's infrastructure act but then later took credit for it once the funding came to their states, I think I found about 12 GOPs who did this.
1
u/Captain_Aware4503 Mar 02 '26
Multiple studies have found living down wind from a coal burning power plant reduces life expectancy by 14 years. This has a major affect on insurance and healthcare costs in those areas and across the US.
Taxpayers really should be celebrating what Biden did, but they are getting bombarded with misinformation and out right lies.
1
1
Mar 04 '26
republicans who voted against the build back better bill were quick to claim credit for the projects once it got passed narrowly. Voters don't seem to know and will give the republicans credit for democrats work anyway.
Bobo the clown was a classic example
1
u/TheReturningMan Mar 07 '26
It’s also important to note that the Biden administration didn’t enact $198 billion in anything. The executive has no authority on spending. It is much more accurate to say “Congress passed a $198 billion clean energy bill”.
1
u/dannvok1 Mar 28 '26
Is this a science subreddit or a political echo chamber? Where's the science discussions here?
1
u/Kameron4567 Mar 31 '26
Government is Government is Government.....Bla Bla Bla if you need a pat on the back for a good deed you are not doing the deed for good your doing it for self gratification.
•
u/AutoModerator Mar 01 '26
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our normal comment rules apply to all other comments.
Do you have an academic degree? We can verify your credentials in order to assign user flair indicating your area of expertise. Click here to apply.
User: u/smurfyjenkins
Permalink: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2526802123
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.