Are US’s bipartisan laws moving forward?

The news from Washington last week, as usual, was grim. Senate Republicans blocked legislation to create a bipartisan commission to investigate the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Bipartisan talks over President Joe Biden’s infrastructure proposals are dragging out. Senators negotiating a police-reform bill missed their deadline.
It’s disappointing to progressives who want to see the government get things done, and to moderates who were hoping a Biden White House would successfully lower the temperature of American politics after the zany Trump years. Even conservatives, who are largely responsible for the gridlock, profess to be disappointed.
I have good news for everyone. This image of a hopelessly broken American political system is basically false. What I call the Secret Congress is working away on legislation that flourishes in the shadows like a fern, avoiding the polarisation and zero-sum thinking that engulfs any high-profile political fight.
Consider the Endless Frontier Act, which is expected to pass the Senate with a large bipartisan majority next week. This bill never led the front page of the New York Times, was never the lead item in Politico’s Playbook, never topped the hour on cable news. It attracted interest in only the most obscure corners of my Twitter feed.
What is it? A major boost in US science funding, including $12.4 billion extra to the National Science Foundation over the next five years, $17.5 billion in new funding for DARPA, $17 billion to the Department of Energy and its various national labs, $10 billion to the Commerce Department to create new regional tech hubs, and $10 billion to NASA for a Human Landing System program. The headline feature is $26.5 billion to stand up a new Technology Directorate at the NSF to make grants in areas that are considered national priorities, such as artificial intelligence.
One reason you haven’t heard that much excitement about the bill is that it represents a significant diminishment of its sponsors’ original aspirations. Senator Todd Young, a Republican from Indiana, originally wanted $100 billion for a technology directorate alone, with a mission and structure distinct from the existing NSF. Young successfully sold Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on the vision, and hopes were high that they could get it done. Instead, Congress got awfully parochial, as it is wont to do, and various members hacked away at the new directorate in favor of boosting funding for various existing science and research agencies that they like.
There are lots of other ways a national legislature could be designed. But this is the way America’s is designed, and the Endless Frontier Act is one of its success stories.
What’s particularly interesting is that this is happening not despite the fact that it’s under the radar, but because it’s under the radar. The Biden administration supports the law, but the president didn’t mention it in his address to Congress last month and the administration hasn’t done showy briefings with reporters.

—Bloomberg