President Biden stops in Portland to tout Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act

The Unit­ed States is final­ly tak­ing mean­ing­ful steps to address its painful­ly deep infra­struc­ture deficit, Pres­i­dent Joe Biden declared today to a sup­port­ive crowd in Port­land dur­ing his first vis­it to the Beaver State as Commander-in-Chief.

“Ore­gon and Amer­i­ca have gone from being on the mend to being on the move.  We just go to get the hell out of our own way,” Biden told a gath­er­ing of elect­ed offi­cials and civic lead­ers in a hangar at the Port­land Air Nation­al Guard Base.

“When I was run­ning for office — I’m sure you’ve heard me say it a thou­sand times — I was going to build this econ­o­my from the bot­tom up and the mid­dle out,” Biden said. “Because when that hap­pens, every­body does well.”

“The wealthy do very, very well. The poor have a way up. And the mid­dle class can grow, as my dad would say, and just have a lit­tle bit of breath­ing room.”

“Just a lit­tle bit of breath­ing room. So we’re going to deal in the peo­ple and the places that have been left out and left behind.  We’re mak­ing progress.”

“Over the course of my pres­i­den­cy, our recov­ery has cre­at­ed 7.9 mil­lion jobs — more jobs cre­at­ed over the first 14 months of my pres­i­den­cy than any pres­i­den­cy in Amer­i­can his­to­ry. Over 420,000 man­u­fac­tur­ing jobs.”

“Who says we can’t man­u­fac­ture our way through all of this? We have the best work­ers in the world.  Not a joke. Unem­ploy­ment nation­wide is at 3.6 per­cent, down from 6.4 per­cent when I took office 19 months ago — the fastest decline in unem­ploy­ment at the start of a term of a Pres­i­dent ever recorded.”

“Ore­gon, you’ve just added 122,000 jobs, and unem­ploy­ment has dropped from 6.4 per­cent to 3.8 percent.”

The Pres­i­den­t’s full remarks can be streamed here.

Biden spoke for about twen­ty-five min­utes, after land­ing at 12:41 Pacif­ic and then tour­ing projects at the air­port, with his remarks often punc­tu­at­ed by applause.

On hand were all of Ore­gon’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic mem­bers of Con­gress — Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Earl Blu­me­nauer, Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Peter DeFazio, Kurt Schrad­er, and Sen­a­tors Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley — along with Gov­er­nor Kate Brown, Port­land May­or Ted Wheel­er, and many oth­ers. Lau­ren Heitz­man, an appren­tice elec­tri­cian with Inter­na­tion­al Broth­er­hood of Elec­tri­cal Work­ers, intro­duced the President.

Brown thanked Biden for pay­ing the state a visit.

​“I’d like to thank the Pres­i­dent for join­ing us today in Ore­gon to lift up the excit­ing and unprece­dent­ed oppor­tu­ni­ties the [Infra­struc­ture Invest­ment and Jobs Act] will bring to our state,” said Gov­er­nor Brown.

“This his­toric invest­ment is tru­ly a game chang­er for Ore­gon, and our nation. I’m so hap­py you were able to see the Port­land airport’s mass tim­ber roof and the expan­sion efforts under­way, as it illus­trates the very best of Ore­gon val­ues — inno­va­tion, cre­ativ­i­ty, col­lab­o­ra­tion, and sustainability.”

“Equi­ty is embed­ded into every aspect of Oregon’s approach to imple­men­ta­tion of the [Infra­struc­ture Invest­ment and Jobs Act]. In Ore­gon, we define infra­struc­ture as not only roads and bridges, but also the core com­po­nents to sup­port­ing the way Ore­go­ni­ans live, work, and play: access to high-speed broad­band, clean drink­ing water, and renew­able energy.”

“Mr. Pres­i­dent, we are grate­ful for your lead­er­ship as we work togeth­er to build a safer, more resilient, just, and equi­table Unit­ed States of America.”

“It’s always a good day when the Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States vis­its Ore­gon and sees the inno­v­a­tive work our state is lead­ing to build Amer­i­ca back, stronger and green­er than ever before,” said Sen­a­tor Jeff Merkley.

“In this year’s fund­ing bill, I secured fund­ing for a com­mu­ni­ty ini­ti­at­ed project to help build a seis­mic resilient run­way at PDX to sur­vive a Cas­ca­dia Sub­duc­tion Zone earth­quake. Thanks to the [Infra­struc­ture Invest­ment and Jobs Act] , we are cre­at­ing jobs and invest­ing in a bet­ter future. And Ore­gon is lead­ing the way with cre­ativ­i­ty and enter­prise. The new mass tim­ber roof at PDX is a tes­ta­ment to a vision of the future filled with Amer­i­can inno­va­tion, Amer­i­can crafts­man­ship, and the com­pet­i­tive­ness of Amer­i­can work­ers and industries.”

“As we invest in infra­struc­ture, though, it’s crit­i­cal that we’re mov­ing toward the infra­struc­ture of the future. If we don’t con­front cli­mate chaos by tak­ing swift, bold action to end car­bon pol­lu­tion and invest in clean ener­gy, we aren’t liv­ing up to America’s great­est poten­tial. Dur­ing the President’s vis­it, I reit­er­at­ed to him that we need fur­ther cli­mate action like he has pro­posed and we need to seize the oppor­tu­ni­ties we have this year to write the next great chap­ter of the Amer­i­can sto­ry. That means no new fos­sil fuel infra­struc­ture and mov­ing as rapid­ly as pos­si­ble to 100% clean, renew­able ener­gy so we stop fund­ing our ene­mies, pol­lut­ing our air, and mort­gag­ing our future.”

“In Con­gress, I’ll nev­er stop fight­ing for Ore­gon and for the poli­cies that will move our state and our coun­try for­ward. By work­ing togeth­er, we can be inno­v­a­tive, more resilient, and stronger. I thank the Pres­i­dent for being a stead­fast part­ner in that work, and I encour­age him to come back and see the great work that’s hap­pen­ing in our beau­ti­ful state many times through­out his presidency.”

After the event at PDX, Biden and Brown head­ed to the Port­land Yacht Club for a Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Com­mit­tee (DNC) event, the pro­ceeds of which are slat­ed for a Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty fund intend­ed to ben­e­fit Biden’s 2024 reelec­tion cam­paign. The event, host­ed by Car­ol But­ler and Win McCor­ma­ck, was not open to the pub­lic, as is typ­i­cal of high dol­lar fundrais­ers, but was par­tial­ly observed by the reporter accom­pa­ny­ing the Pres­i­dent on behalf of the White House press corps.

The motor­cade left the air­port at 3:17 PM Pacif­ic arrived at the Yacht Club just nine min­utes lat­er, at 3:26 PM Pacif­ic Time, after pass­ing by a con­tin­gent of Trump fans, Biden sup­port­ers, and curi­ous onlookers.

Biden was intro­duced to event atten­dees at 3:35 PM by Joe Boyle of Colum­bia Sports­wear in a room dec­o­rat­ed with boat­ing flags and photos.

Audio of Biden’s com­ments is here.

After recount­ing how he end­ed up run­ning for Pres­i­dent in 2020, Biden piv­ot­ed to talk­ing about the cur­rent land­scape and the bat­tle for the soul of the country.

“This is not your father’s Repub­li­can Par­ty, by any stretch of the imag­i­na­tion,” Biden told the assem­bly. “This is the MAGA Par­ty. Not a joke.”

“Think about it: This is a par­ty that’s owned whol­ly by guys like the sen­a­tor from Texas and oth­ers. I mean, real­ly and tru­ly, did you ever think we’d be in a cir­cum­stance where […] the head of the Sen­ate cam­paign com­mit­tee in the Unit­ed States Sen­ate and Repub­li­can Par­ty put out a plat­form that even Repub­li­cans have walked away from, some of them, say­ing — what? — that every five years we should recon­sid­er whether we keep Social Secu­ri­ty, Medicare…”

At that point, Biden was inter­rupt­ed by a sup­port­ive audi­ence member.

Respond­ing to laugh­ter, the Pres­i­dent said: “This is the God’s truth.  If you want a copy of it, I will send it to you. No, no, but this is what they’re run­ning on.”

“Here’s the deal, guys,” Biden added lat­er. “There’s so much we can do — so much we can do.  But what I real­ized is I’m mak­ing the same mis­take — and I mean this as a com­pli­ment because he’s still my best bud­dy — that — that we made when — in the Oba­ma-Biden administration.”

“I remem­ber say­ing to Barack after we passed the Afford­able Care Act, I said, ‘Let’s take a vic­to­ry lap.’ He said, ‘We don’t have time. We don’t have time.’ ”

“But guess what? No one knew what was in it. They did­n’t know why they had what they had. They did­n’t know why we were able to do the — peo­ple were cov­ered when they were nev­er cov­ered before.”

“Well, here’s what we — I have to do.  I’m not doing a very good job because so much — it’s like — you know, I used to say in Barack­’s admin­is­tra­tion, ‘Every­thing land­ed on his desk but locusts.’ Well, they land­ed on my desk.”

In mak­ing these obser­va­tions, Pres­i­dent Biden was acknowl­edg­ing a point made repeat­ed­ly here on the Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate by NPI con­trib­u­tor Joel Con­nel­ly. Leg­isla­tive accom­plish­ments sim­ply don’t sell themselves.

Return­ing at the end of his remarks to his pre­vi­ous theme, Biden empha­sized that he thinks one of the rea­sons he’s been unable to get Con­gress to do more for the coun­try is that Repub­li­cans are unwill­ing to go against their mil­i­tant base.

“There are a num­ber of Repub­li­cans who know bet­ter, but they’re afraid,” Biden said. “I know — I won’t ask for names, but I’m sure my col­leagues can tell you from the Sen­ate at least six Unit­ed States Sen­a­tors have come to me and said, ‘I know — I know I should vote for this, Joe. But if I do, they’ll pri­ma­ry me and I’ll be out.’ It’s not very coura­geous, but… the Far Right has tak­en over that party.”

“And it’s not even con­ser­v­a­tive in a tra­di­tion­al sense of con­ser­v­a­tive,” Biden not­ed. “It’s mean. It’s ugly. It’s the way — look what’s hap­pen­ing down in Flori­da… They’re going after Mick­ey Mouse. I mean, seri­ous­ly, think about it.”

“As my friend used to say, “Who woul­da thunk it?’”

Biden fin­ished speak­ing at 4:07 PM and was back on the road at 4:25 PM, head­ed to Port­land Inter­na­tion­al Air­port. The return trip took only sev­en min­utes. Anoth­er sev­en min­utes after that, at 4:39 PM, Air Force One was rolling for Seat­tle, with local tele­vi­sion sta­tions like KGW livestream­ing the air­craft’s depar­ture.