Many Republicans mobilizing against ‘bipartisan’ infrastructure bill
by Emily Brooks, Political Reporter | August 03, 2021
The bipartisan group of senators who crafted the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is preparing to take a victory lap as the Senate moves toward passing the bill in the coming days.
But a large number of Republicans are mobilizing against the bill that includes $1.2 trillion of spending and $550 billion in new spending on “hard infrastructure” projects, such as rail, ports, electric vehicle charging stations, and broadband.
Right after the group of bipartisan senators introduced the bill’s text on Sunday night, Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee gave a long floor speech in opposition to the legislation, arguing that the Constitution does not give Congress to “go out and spend money on anything that we deem appropriate” and that the price tag is too high.
“Shame on us for making poor and middle-class Americans poorer so that we can bring praise and adulation to ourselves and more money to a small handful of wealthy, well-connected interests in America,” Lee said.
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Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley said that he would vote against the bill, sharing an article that called it “an epic binge of green subsidies and more handouts for states and localities.”
Several Republicans in the House are also stating their opposition to the bill.
The Republican Study Committee, the largest conservative caucus in the House and chaired by Indiana Rep. Jim Banks, distributed a memo to its members with a list of 10 talking points against the deal. It alleges that the bulk of the bill funds “Green New Deal provisions” and that it “favors people who live in blue cities” by funding electric vehicle charging stations.
But most of all, there is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s pledge to not bring the infrastructure to a vote until Senate Democrats also pass another multitrillion-dollar deal targeting social programs and “human infrastructure” through the reconciliation process, bypassing the need for Republican support.
“No one should support something that will serve as a trojan horse for the Democrats’ reconciliation package, which the White House wants to use to pass massive amnesty,” the RSC memo read.
Rep. Chip Roy, a member of the GOP from Texas, accused the Senate Republicans who backed the bill of supporting a plan to “re-make America.”
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“Many @SenateGOP plan to vote for a ‘bipartisan Infrastructure’ bill that dumps truckloads of borrowed money in hands of leftist Dems to empower feds to re-make America — all while the same feds kill our economy, mandate masks, & enrich fentanyl-trafficking cartels. #UselessGOP,” Roy said in a tweet.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has thrown his support behind the bill, but his counterpart in the House, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, said that he wanted to wait for the details of the proposal.
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