A bridge collapses in a US city where Biden will talk about infrastructure

A bridge collapsed early Friday in Pittsburgh without causing any deaths, just hours before a visit by the president. Joe Biden to this old iron and steel capital American to praise its investment package in infrastructure and industry.

“Is incredible”, He said Biden in front of the collapsed bridge, covered in snow, where several motorists and vehicles – including a bus – were blocked.

The accident caused no deaths. Three injured, whose lives are not in danger, were taken to the hospital, said the emergency services of this city, the second largest in the state of Pennsylvania (east) after Philadelphia.

“It’s a miracle, Mr. President,” said a member of an intervention and rescue team.

“It really is,” replied the president, with a crane in the background. “There are more bridges in Pittsburgh than in any other city in the world,” said the Democrat. “We’re going to fix them all.”

According to his agenda, broadcast by the White House, Biden will deliver a speech this afternoon on his approach to “reinforce the country’s logistics chains, revitalize the industrial sector, create well-paid, union-protected jobs, and build a new America, primarily thanks to the bipartisan law on infrastructure.”

Biden and the bridges

It’s a striking coincidence: On January 20, marking his first anniversary in the White House, Biden praised this law, while photos of dilapidated bridges were projected onto a billboard.

The massive $1.2 trillion infrastructure spending plan passed by Congress late last year, and even received some votes from the Republican opposition, is one of the Democratic president’s few major successes to date.

With a popularity rating among public opinion of around 40%, Biden has decided to get closer to the population this year in which the mid-term legislative elections may cost him his narrow parliamentary majority.

After spending a year promising vast economic and social change in the United States, the White House was forced to scale back its ambitions. And also to adapt their way of communicating with Americans who are fighting against historic inflation and a new wave of the pandemic.

In this context, the president’s big projects seem far removed from his daily concerns.

After the infrastructure law, and in the absence of having been able to approve a very ambitious social regulation of 1.7 billion dollars, the president seeks to save at least some reforms, such as aid for child care or spending for the energy transition .

To win the vote of centrist Democrats who don’t want him leaning too far toward heavy state intervention in the economy, the president is now talking about a plan to “put Americans to work” and increase the country’s competitiveness.

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