Outgoing Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg spoke candidly with Politico’s Adam Wren about the Biden administration’s legacy, including its transformative policies and the paradox of public perception. Despite landmark achievements, such as the bipartisan infrastructure bill—the largest investment in infrastructure since the Interstate Highway System—President Joe Biden’s polling numbers remained stubbornly low throughout his term.
Buttigieg, who played a pivotal role in implementing the infrastructure law and promoting its achievements across diverse platforms, offered an explanation for the disconnect between policy success and political reward.
“The nature of good policy and being politically rewarded for a good policy is it doesn’t tend to happen—in the same way that an artist is not necessarily appreciated in their lifetime, a policy is rarely appreciated in the same political cycle where it happens, especially a good one,” Buttigieg remarked.
He drew parallels to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which faced initial political backlash before becoming a cornerstone Democratic achievement. “Think about the political life of the ACA, to go from being an albatross to being our winning issue in eight years. And even then, you have to do all the finessing for folks who don’t think of the ACA and Obamacare as the same thing. There’s a lot of that here with this stuff.”
Buttigieg attributed the lack of recognition for Biden’s accomplishments to a crowded news environment and the nature of media coverage. “Part of it’s that we were competing with a lot of other things for attention. Part of it is good news is no news: That unambiguously and uncontroversially good things command less attention. So I can go out there and wave the flag. I think it will matter over time. I think it did matter.”
When asked about Biden’s frustration over the slow rollout of infrastructure projects, Buttigieg expressed a shared impatience. “I think what the president was getting at is an impatience we all feel about the recognition and credit that this work deserves when the nature of the beast is that these are very long-term projects.”
He highlighted the scope of the administration’s accomplishments, noting, “Of the 66,000 projects that we’ve announced, about 16,000 of them are complete from a federal perspective.” Buttigieg’s reflections underscore the challenges of translating ambitious policy achievements into immediate political gains while emphasizing the long-term impact of the administration’s work.