Biden Reverses on Migrant Payments, Claims Spending Bill Will “Ease Inflation” at Zero Cost

On November 6, 2021, President Biden held a press conference following the House passage of the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. The event was intended to celebrate the legislative win, but it was overshadowed by Biden’s reversal on the migrant payment controversy, his repeated insistence that a multi-trillion-dollar spending bill would reduce inflation and cost zero dollars, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s claim that passing Build Back Better was “important” to fighting inflation. Biden also addressed the Spanberger “nobody elected him to be FDR” criticism and predicted the Build Back Better Act would pass both chambers.

Biden Reverses on $450,000 Migrant Payments

The most contentious exchange of the press conference came when reporters pressed Biden on the apparent contradiction between his earlier dismissal of the $450,000 migrant payment reports as “garbage” and the administration’s actual negotiating position.

Biden clarified — or reversed — his earlier position in an exchange that saw him wagging his finger and raising his voice. “Now here’s the thing. If in fact because of the outrageous behavior of the last administration, you coming across the border, whether it was legal or illegal, and you lost your child,” Biden said, his voice rising. “You lost your child. It’s gone. You deserve some kind of compensation, no matter what the circumstance. What that will be, I have no idea.”

The statement represented a significant shift from his flat denial days earlier. Biden had told a reporter on November 3 that reports of $450,000 payments were “garbage” and that it was “not going to happen.” Now he was saying his objection had been specifically to the dollar figure, not to the concept of compensation.

When the original question was replayed — “Do you think that that might incentivize more people to come over illegally?” — Biden’s previous response was “If you guys keep sending that garbage out, yeah. But it’s not true.”

The reversal fueled the narrative that the president had not been fully briefed on his own Justice Department’s settlement negotiations, or alternatively, that the White House had realized the political cost of the “garbage” denial after the ACLU contradicted the president publicly.

Build Back Better: “Fully Paid For” and “Eases Inflation”

Biden used the press conference to make two economic claims about his Build Back Better agenda that drew scrutiny.

First, he insisted the bill would cost nothing: “This bill is fiscally responsible. That’s a fancy way of saying it’s fully paid for. It doesn’t raise the deficit by a single penny, and it actually reduces the deficit, according to the leading economist in this country, over the long term.”

Second, he claimed the spending would reduce rather than increase inflation. Biden cited a letter from “17 Nobel Prize winners in economics” who he said “determined that it will ease inflationary pressures — not create them, ease them — ease those pressures.”

Biden repeated the claim multiple times throughout the event, telling the audience that the infrastructure bill and Build Back Better together would “ease inflationary pressure, not increase it, ease inflationary pressures by lowering costs for working families.”

Critics pointed out that a bill funded entirely by new taxes and spending reductions would not typically be described as costing “zero” by anyone outside the White House, and that the inflation claim relied on long-term projections while Americans were experiencing price increases in real time. Senator Joe Manchin had already raised concerns that the bill’s real cost was nearly double the $1.75 trillion headline figure due to what he called “shell games” and “budget gimmicks.”

Buttigieg: Spending Is the Answer to Inflation

Transportation Secretary Buttigieg expanded on the inflation argument in the video compilation. He acknowledged that Americans were feeling real economic pain but argued that passing Build Back Better was part of the solution, not the problem.

“There’s a technical issue over whether it’s considered structural or whether it’s considered temporary, but when it’s hitting your grocery bill, that’s not temporary. That’s just your life. That’s your budget,” Buttigieg said. “And Americans are feeling that in a lot of different ways.”

He then connected the spending agenda directly to inflation relief: “It’s one of the reasons why it’s so important to move this legislation through,” arguing that “putting more money in people’s pockets” through the child tax credit and reduced childcare costs would help Americans cope with rising prices.

The argument — that the government should spend trillions of dollars to ease the inflation caused in part by previous government spending — was a hard sell for skeptics who pointed out that the federal government had already injected approximately $5 trillion in stimulus and relief spending into the economy since 2020, with inflation running at its highest level in three decades.

”Nobody Elected Him to Be FDR”

A reporter asked Biden about Representative Abigail Spanberger’s stinging assessment: “Nobody elected him to be FDR. They elected him to be normal and stop the chaos.”

Biden offered a personal response, revealing that he and Spanberger had spoken since her public comments. “Well, Abigail’s a friend. We had a long talk. She joked and said, ‘I have a picture of Roosevelt hanging in my office,’” Biden said.

He then attempted to reframe his ambitions in accessible terms: “I don’t intend to be anybody but Joe Biden. That’s who I am.” He defined “Build Back Better” as simply the idea that America should “come out better than we were before the crisis occurred.”

When asked how he bridged the gap between moderate and progressive Democrats on the infrastructure vote, Biden said: “Look, all kidding aside, I believe everybody in the process is entitled to be treated with respect. I’ve been doing this kind of thing my whole life.”

Infrastructure Week Finally Arrives

Biden opened the press conference with genuine enthusiasm about the passage of the infrastructure bill. “Finally, infrastructure week. I’m so happy to say that,” he said, referencing the long-running Washington joke about the elusive “infrastructure week” that had become a meme during the Trump administration.

He described the $1.2 trillion legislation as creating jobs “in every part of the country — red states, blue states, cities, small towns, rural communities, tribal communities” and called it “a blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America.”

Biden listed specific provisions: replacing lead water pipes, expanding broadband access, modernizing roads and bridges, and addressing climate change. He repeated an anecdote about parents sitting in fast-food parking lots so their children could access internet for homework, and cited $99 billion in climate-related losses the previous year.

He also predicted confidently that Build Back Better would follow: “Let me be clear, we will pass this in the House and we’ll pass it in the Senate.” When pressed on timing, Biden demurred: “I don’t want to make your job easier. I know the answer exactly when it’s going to be passed.”

Key Takeaways

• Biden reversed his “garbage” denial of migrant payments, saying with raised voice that anyone who “lost your child” at the border “deserve some kind of compensation, no matter what the circumstance,” while maintaining his objection had been to the specific $450,000 figure.
• He claimed the Build Back Better Act was “fully paid for,” would not “raise the deficit by a single penny,” and would “ease inflationary pressures,” citing 17 Nobel laureates, while critics noted the bill’s real cost could be nearly double the headline $1.75 trillion.
• Transportation Secretary Buttigieg argued that passing the spending bill was “important” to reducing inflation by “putting more money in people’s pockets,” while Biden celebrated the infrastructure bill passage and predicted Build Back Better would pass both chambers.

Sources

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