(Bloomberg) -- House Democrats should focus on infrastructure during the next two years, as they'll control the House while Republicans hold the Senate and the presidency, said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who is considering a bid for president.
Garcetti revealed the results of a poll showing 66 percent of registered voters are disappointed that Congress hasn't passed a major infrastructure bill and a majority of them blame Republicans and Democrats equally. The poll by Hart Research Associates surveyed 1,001 registered voters from November 16-20.
"I want to see a Congress that helps us," he told reporters and editors at a Bloomberg breakfast in Washington.
Garcetti said that his fellow Democrats need to focus on helping to build things and cited Los Angeles as an example of investments to ports and rapid transit. "While we're diddling" about in Washington, he said, "China is building out the world's greatest infrastructure."
Infrastructure funding had been seen as a possible bipartisan point for compromise, though has stalled over how much money the federal government should put in, as well as how to pay for it. Republicans pushed legislative priorities of deregulation, tax law changes and an attempted Obamacare repeal instead.
With Democrats taking the House, and Republican holding the Senate and White House, any bill would have have support from both parties.
Garcetti told reporters he'll decide on whether or not to mount a presidential bid in the first quarter of 2019.
To contact the reporter on this story: Laura Curtis in Washington at lcurtis7@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Derek Wallbank at dwallbank@bloomberg.net
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