There’s a lot riding on the $3.5 trillion spending bill that is currently struggling to make its way through Congress—for Biden anyway. The massive spending plan, if it doesn’t pass, would be disastrous for his agenda. Yet getting it through Congress has been no cakewalk.
If you ask White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, however, an overwhelming majority of Americans support the agenda funded by the bill.
“So, included in these packages that the President is fighting to move forward on with leadership, we are working to lower the excruciatingly high cost of prescription drugs, which, by the way, over 80 percent of the American public supports,” Psaki said during a White House press briefing earlier this week. “We’re also working to make historic investments in crumbling roads and bridges, which over 80 percent of Americans support.”
Later, Psaki was asked why Biden is having such a hard time getting this bill through.
“If the president’s agenda is so popular with the American people, why can’t he find the votes to get it through Congress? And why hasn’t he rallied public support, really, to get this done?” a reporter asked.
Psaki again repeated the 80 percent support figure. “Well, I would say first, if public support is right around 80 percent for most of the initiatives, then public support has been rallied.”
It’s obvious Psaki wants the public to believe that everyone just loves Biden’s agenda, but the truth is that America has no love for this spending plan.
According to a Rasmussen Reports survey released on Monday, “just 36% of Likely U.S. Voters support passage of the $3.5 trillion spending bill that currently has Congress deadlocked.”
A majority of Americans, 53 percent, oppose the passage of the spending bill–and that includes 41 percent who strongly oppose its passage.
The survey also found that 52 percent of voters “oppose raising the limit on federal borrowing, including 34% who Strongly Oppose raising the debt ceiling,” compared to 40 percent who support raising the debt ceiling.
In short, if the Biden administration thinks that passing the $3.5 trillion spending plan will give them a political winner, they couldn’t be more wrong. But I don’t think this is a case of them being deluded. In fact, this reminds me a lot of how the Obama administration spun Obamacare. Instead of focusing on the whole legislation, they picked out certain popular parts of it to highlight. It didn’t exactly work. Obamacare took some shady backroom deals and a few broken promises to get passed, and it remained unpopular for some time after it became law. But Americans aren’t stupid. They know that there’s more to the bill than just the proposals that are popular. Biden doesn’t help himself by making absurd statements, such as the claim that his agenda actually costs zero dollars. Lies like that are insulting, especially since independent estimates put the price tag at over $5 trillion.
Related: Jen Psaki Is the Stupidest Person in the World (Or Hopes You Are)
