A steel plant at the edge of this riverside town played a pivotal role in the family history of Sen. JD Vance.
The plant, Vance wrote in his memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” was nothing less than an “economic savior” for his grandparents. A steady job there for his “Papaw” is what lifted his grandparents “from the hills of Kentucky into America’s middle class.”
Its future looks bright too, thanks in part to a grant of up to $500 million from the Biden administration. The money is aimed at helping its owners replace a coal-fired blast furnace so that steel can be produced with clean hydrogen and natural gas — improvements that would cut climate and air pollution and help ensure the plant stays open for another generation.
But the political benefits for the Biden administration — and by extension Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee — are less clear. This is true not just in Middletown but in similar communities across the country that are on track to receive funding from either the Inflation Reduction Act or the bipartisan infrastructure law, arguably the two biggest domestic accomplishments of President Joe Biden’s time in the White House.
Both measures remain largely unknown to the public, polling has shown. Perhaps as worrisome for Harris is that the federal investments may not do much to break the country’s partisan divide, even in places that have benefited from the spending.
“I don’t really look for the government to do anything for you,” he said. “It’s more like just stay out of my way.”
“Except on abortion. On abortion, the government should most certainly stay in the way…and on books in a library…government should stay in the way on that one too. Bathrooms! Most certainly a place government should stay in the way. I believe it is of paramount importantance to all Americans that the genitalia you use to relieve yourself match what I think it should for the room you’re in doing it…except if its a single seat bathroom, then it doesn’t matter…and government should stay out of the way.” - Vance probably
