Senate Republicans refuse to take their job seriously, offer another ridiculous infrastructure plan
It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for: The Republican Senate infrastructure counteroffer is here, and it’s basically what they were already offering but spiffed up with a logo. It’s ostensibly a $928 billion plan, but in reality it’s just $257 billion in new spending, spread out over eight years. So, like $32 billion in new spending a year.
The last offer from President Joe Biden was for $1.7 trillion, an offer he’ll hopefully take off the table and revert to his original $2.3 trillion plan now that Republicans have proven their refusal to take this seriously. The “new” spending from Republicans isn’t even new—they take most of it from unspent COVID-19 relief funds. That money is supposed to be available over the next several years to help states and localities recover from the devastation of the pandemic, and hopefully avoid its resurgence.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre explained Wednesday that there just isn’t a magic pot of coronavirus relief money available. She said that by the end of March, almost all of the $3 trillion in “pre-Rescue Plan Covid relief funding”—the stuff passed last year—had already been obligated or is in the Paycheck Protection Program, unemployment insurance, or nutrition assistance. (Disclosure: Kos Media received a Paycheck Protection Program loan.) The rest—just 5% of the funds—is targeted to healthcare providers, rural hospitals, and small business disaster loans. “There are simply not hundreds of billions of dollars in Covid relief funds available to repurpose,” she said.
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Which makes the Republican plan that much more ridiculous—they want to take money away from small businesses? First out of the gate to point this out Thursday morning was Sen. Elizabeth Warren. The Massachusetts Democrat said it wasn’t “a serious counteroffer.” Which is absolutely true. “First of all, they don’t have pay-fors for this, it’s not real,” she told MSNBC. “They have this illusory notion of how we’re going to take money that’s already been committed to other places and other spending.”
They also double down on fossil fuel technologies—putting the bulk of the money into projects to move more cars around. It includes $506 billion for roads and bridges, with just $4 billion for electric vehicles. Biden’s proposal includes $174 billion for electric vehicles, including funds to construct 500,000 charging stations throughout the nation by 2030. The Republicans have $72 billion for water systems; Biden has $111 billion to replace lead water pipes and upgrade sewer systems.
The Republicans have $65 billion for broadband; Biden has $100 billion for high-speed broadband and a commitment to provide 100% coverage for the country. Biden has $400 billion for home health care, $100 billion for rebates to consumers for electric vehicles, $213 billion to build and renovate affordable housing and buildings, and $100 billion to upgrade and build new schools. None of that is in the Republican offer. The leader of that effort, West Virginia Republican Shelley Moore Capito, says: “We’re still talking. I’m optimistic, we still have a big gap.”
That she’s “optimistic” but says there’s a “big gap” suggests she’s doing little more than trying to play out the clock. “I think where we’re really falling short is we can’t seem to get the White House to agree on a definition or a scope of infrastructure that matches where we think it is, and that’s physical, core infrastructure.”
They’re still not agreed on definitions, and she sniffed at Biden’s effort in “bringing their human infrastructure into this package,” which is “just a nonstarter for us.” Like more care for the elderly and disabled and clean drinking water and safe schools and homes, apparently. But they are just trying to draw the process out beyond the Memorial Day deadline Biden gave them.
And, God help us, they may get that extended deadline. As of Wednesday evening, before Republicans released this latest bit of policy fluff, Politico reported that “Biden advisers and Democrats are preparing to wind down talks within a week or possibly two.” That’s according to three people “familiar with the discussions.”
It’s really starting to wear on the majority core of Democrats who want to see Biden’s package pass. “Even in the context of a Covid recovery, a trillion dollars is a wide gap,” Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz told Politico. “Now there are several groups within groups positioning themselves as the lead negotiators on infrastructure. We are rapidly approaching the witching hour.” That’s a reference to the group of usual suspects—Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema, Susan Collins, Rob Portman—who have their own gang working on a bipartisan effort. Given how effective the usual suspects usually are, don’t hold your breath on a breakthrough with them.
What another two weeks of “negotiating” might do, however, is give Democrats enough time to plot out the budget reconciliation process, which requires just Democratic votes they’re going to have to use to get anything passed. And two weeks to knock Manchin’s and Sinema’s heads together to make them go along with it.