By Kate Sullivan, Betsy Klein, Jason Hoffman and Maegan Vazquez, CNN

President Joe Biden visited central Michigan on Tuesday as he seeks to regain momentum from his two economic plans, which remain stalled on Capitol Hill due to stark divisions within his own party over the duration and scope of the plans.

In a speech during the trip, Biden argued that the two elements of his Build Back Better program — a $1. 2 trillion infrastructure package and a larger $3. 5 trillion bill to expand the social safety net — are critical to the country’s economic growth, especially to helping intermediary countries. . social categories and executing families.

Biden said he believes the country is at a historic tipping point and that the country will have to make the kind of large-scale investments that competition like China is making to revive the economy. The president pointed to China’s spending on education, especially preschool and higher education, and argued that the United States makes similar investments.

“We threaten to waste our merit as a nation. Our infrastructure is the most productive in the world, literally not figuratively,” Biden said. “Today, according to the World Economic Forum, we are in 13th place . . . All those investments that have driven a strong economy, we have lifted our foot on the accelerator. By the way, the world has taken notice, adding our adversaries, and now they are at the end of the hole in a significant way.

In addition to infrastructure, Biden said the country will have to continue to invest in its citizens, pushing through measures included in the proposed social safety net blocked through Democratic infighting.

In particular, he highlighted investments in public education, child care and the children’s tax credit, as well as the fight against the climate crisis.

The president criticized Republicans for their tax cuts over the provisions of their legislative proposals, saying, “My friends on the other team have no challenge in giving billionaires and millionaires huge tax breaks. It’s a tax cut. “

But he also argued that his proposals “have nothing to do with the left in opposition to the right, or moderate in opposition to progressive, or anything that pits Americans opposed to others. “

“These expenses are all about competitiveness rather than complacency. They communicate about opportunity as opposed to decadence. It’s about making the global work or proceeding to let the global overtake us, what’s literally happening,” he continued, then added: “It’s not about two laws, it’s about the tipping point I talked about earlier, we’re in our history, the history of the global.

Biden spoke at the International Union of Operational Engineers’ Local 324 Training Center in Howell and won a guided tour before his speech.

He arrived here in Michigan after the president met with virtually Democratic members of the House to discuss the two economic packages. Senior White House officials were on Capitol Hill last week seeking to negotiate a deal, but failed to paint a framework that enough members. it would join, forcing Democrats on the agenda.

On a Tuesday afternoon, the White House said the assembly was a “productive discussion about how each of those economic expansion packages, whether physical and human infrastructure, is at the center of how we make sure our economy serves middle elegance and ensures our competitiveness around the world. “

Biden told reporters after his speech in Michigan that he expected West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, a moderate party that has a key Senate vote on equivalent stock, to get a spending package that lately exceeds $2. 2 trillion.

Asked if he thought Manchin would have a social safety net of more than $2. 2 trillion, Biden said, “Well, you heard it on TV today, it looks like it’s moving. I hope so. “

On Tuesday, Manchin ruled out a diversity between $1. 9 trillion and $2. 2 trillion for the package.

Biden also made it clear that he knew he wouldn’t get all the facets of what he sought in his social safety net legislation, but said he believed a bill would eventually be drafted and that he planned to take advantage of that package. for time.

When asked before leaving Michigan what to cut from this package to reduce the charge by about $1 trillion, Biden said, “That’s what we’re negotiating now. “

“My purpose is to get everything I campaigned on. Not everything will happen at the same time. . . We will get a compromise. But that doesn’t mean it’s the end of what’s in the rest of the package,” he added. Added.

Meanwhile, the deadline to raise the debt ceiling to prevent the United States from defaulting for the first time in its history is less than two weeks away. last week, or there may be catastrophic consequences.

Biden said Monday he could make sure the debt ceiling is raised in time because of “hypocritical, harmful and shameful” Republican opposition. Congressional Republicans refuse to provide votes to raise the debt limit, and Biden said they would have to. vote on a bipartisan foundation to pay for the expenses for which both parties are responsible.

A nonprofit advocacy organization seeking to bolster Biden’s political calendar announced it was launching a television advertising crusade in Michigan ahead of the president’s visit.

Build Back Together posted on Twitter: “We are launching a six-figure TV investment in Michigan, ahead of @POTUS to Howell, to highlight how the program #BuildBackBetter will create jobs and lower prices for everyday families, while making the ultra-rich through it all pay their fair share!

Howell is located in a key community to watch the future of the 2022 midterm elections. The district, which stretches from the capital of the heavily Democratic state of Lansing to the more Republican rural areas of southeast Michigan to the outskirts of suburban Detroit, is home-to-moderate. Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin, who first chose Slotkin at the venue in 2018 for Biden’s visit.

Former President Donald Trump defeated Biden in the 2020 presidential election in Livingston County, where Howell is located, via 60. 5 to 37. 9 Array In 2016, Trump led Hillary Clinton from 61. 7 to 32. 2 Array Slotkin won Michigan’s eighth congressional district, which includes Livingston County, from 50. 9 to 32. 2 47. 3 Matrix

This tale was updated with other advances on Tuesday.

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