'Bidenomics' delivered a once-in-generation investment. It shows the pros and cons of policymaking

WASHINGTON (AP) — There are so many dots on the maps they blur into blobs — each one reflecting trillions of public and private dollars flowing in the U.S. this past year to build thousands of roads, bridges and manufacturing projects in communities large and small, in states red and blue.

They include an electric vehicle “battery belt” of manufacturing stretching from Michigan to Georgia, semiconductor fabrication plants in Arizona, Texas, Ohio and New York and broadband coming to Appalachia.

“It’s this whole new world of opportunity,” said Monte Shaw, executive director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, who said firms are investing millions of dollars to upgrade facilities and transform the ethanol industry.

At the same time, provisions in the IRA will allow counties and local governments to tap into federal green energy production tax credits typically used by private entities, enabling them to develop projects on their own.

In many ways, the undertaking reflects Biden’s initial ideas when he took office for the “Build Back Better” agenda, which started as an industrial policy but morphed into a much-more unwieldly package of social programs that collapsed in failure.

While a similar bipartisan effort powered the CHIPS bill to passage, investing $50 billion in semiconductors and science research, Democrats alone muscled the Inflation Reduction Act into law late over steep Republican opposition, which continues to this day.