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As evidence that Mr. Biden’s vision of more government support for working-class Americans was misguided, Mr. Scott cited his own remarkable story — how he was “disillusioned and angry” and nearly failed out of school after his parents divorced and his single mother toiled to support him and his brother.

“The beauty of the American dream is that families get to define it for themselves,” Mr. Scott said. “We should be expanding opportunities and options for all families, not throwing money at certain issues because Democrats think they know best.”

As he concluded his address, Mr. Scott, who is deeply religious, drew on themes of redemption and grace.

“Our best future will not come from Washington schemes or socialist dreams; it will come from the American people — Black, Hispanic, white, Asian, Republicans and Democrats,” he said. “Brave police officers and Black neighborhoods. We are not adversaries. We are all in this together.”

But much of his speech focused on accusing Mr. Biden and congressional Democrats of “pulling us further and further apart,” and centered on a theme that Republicans believe will help them reclaim majorities in the House and Senate in 2022: portraying Mr. Biden as beholden to his party’s left flank.

While last week Republicans introduced their own, drastically slimmed down answer to Mr. Biden’s sprawling physical infrastructure package — offering a $568 billion counterproposal that Democrats dismissed as inadequate — they have not offered an education and child care bill, and are not expected to offer a comprehensive alternative to the president’s latest proposals.

Instead, as they awaited his speech on Wednesday afternoon, some Republicans took to the Senate floor to preemptively denounce Mr. Biden’s approach. They painted the president’s two-pronged infrastructure plan — one to bolster the nation’s roads and bridges and another to expand access to education and child care, carrying a total price of just over $4 trillion — as unnecessary, expensive and intrusive government overreach.