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13 Republican Congressmen Save Pelosi, Biden on $1.2T Infrastructure Vote
Six Democrats voted against the $1.2 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Plan (BIF) late Friday night, which should have killed the legislation. Instead, 13 Republicans rode to Nancy Pelosi’s rescue and voted yes. The BIF passed the Senate nearly two months ago, so the legislation will head straight to the White House for the President’s signature.
Here are the Republicans for Pelosi:
- Rep. Don Bacon (R–NE)
- Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R–PA)
- Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R–NY)
- Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R–OH)
- Rep. John Katko (R–NY)
- Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R–IL)
- Rep. Nicole Malliatokis (R–NY)
- Rep. David McKinley (R–WV)
- Rep. Tom Reed (R–NY)
- Rep. Chris Smith (R–NJ)
- Rep. Fred Upton (R–MI)
- Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R–NJ)
- Rep. Don Young (R–AK)
Despite Democrats not having the necessary support, the final vote was 228-206 thanks to these 13 Republicans. Each should be primaried, at least those who aren’t retiring. And it’s time for Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R–CA) to be removed as House Minority Leader since he has demonstrated brutal incompetence.
For the record, here are the six Democrats who voted against the bill:
- Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D–NY)
- Rep. Cori Bush (D–MO)
- Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–NY)
- Rep. Ilhan Omar (D–MN)
- Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D–MA)
- Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D–MI)
I’m having a hard time getting worked up over this. It already passed the Senate with bipartisan support, and now it’s passed the house with bipartisan support. It was the smaller and less objectionable of the two bills. Is it too much to assume that getting the thirteen Republicans to support it was just another example of typical congressional sausage-making? Did any of us really think this bill was never, ever going to be passed?
I agree. Why aren’t the Republican Senators who voted for it being castigated? As best I can recall, it passed with a veto-proof majority.
Whoever came up with the idea of branding bribes, payoffs, and graft as “sausage-making” was brilliant. It makes the corruption sound so tasty.
I don’t disagree with this, I just don’t think it is worth it for the defense. The Northern armies ended up living off the Southern land, so the lack of Southern infrastructure really didn’t hurt the North as much as you make it seem, but it did cripple the Confederacy’s ability to simultaneously defend against invasion in all theaters.
This is the bill dealing with actual infrastructure, no? As one whose travel was held up by the broken I-40 bridge in Memphis, I think some investment in bridges and such is a good idea. A large number of large bridges are overdue for renovation, and the roads suck. Do we want more like the I-35 bridge collapse in Minneapolis that killed a bunch of people in 2007? Things like that should not be happening in a first world country. I don’t know that much about the bill and whether the policies it advances are all good, though. And then there’s the national debt, of course.
Fooled by the reply button again. That was part of Jeff’s comment.
It didn’t have the manpower to do it anyway.
Well, this proof costs a lot of money for a start.
I wonder how many will show up at the signing ceremony. Romney will, he’s practically a Democrat. Susan Collins probably, for the same reason. Murkowki, ditto, the Alaska snowblower is as dirty as they come. Portman, probably, he’s not up for re-election. Cocaine Mitch probably won’t be invited.
Curse the reply button.
It didn’t collapse. It was collapsed. It was conquered.
It’s a messy topic. It would be pretty interesting to hear an ordinary conservative economist debate and Austrian economist on this stuff.
I think the public tends to think of it as 70% stimulus and 30% productivity.
Do they spend money on things with obvious productivity increases?
It only happens with Democrat priorities. Republicans get absolutely zero Democrats crossing the aisle to support border security, entitlement reform, or school choice.
How would GOP initiatives benefit Democrat constituencies?
Porous pavement is what we called potholes at one time, and the mother of all potholes are called sinkholes.
There is simply no way that taking on 1.2 trillion dollars of liabilities in order to get up to (but probably a lot less) than 300 billion in repairs, improvements, and maintenance can be considered fiscally responsible.
Try doing that ratio with a home-improvement loan and see how far you get.
And this is before we even consider that we have already reserved money for infrastructure that has been diverted. There is the added cost too, of allowing the word ‘infrastructure’ to be rendered so meaningless is to accept a contempt from our government and adopt a helpless cynicism that makes one think of Soviet-era lies.
It took about 3 or 4 years to build Hoover dam, in the middle of the desert, in the middle of the depression. This including building an entire city for the workers.
In the 1980s/1990s, it took more than 10 years to build a new visitor center for the dam.
Not around here, it isn’t. I personally know two of the leaders of the local Tea Party, though I haven’t gone to any of their meetings. I’ve been invited, though, and might show up sometime.
I wonder how many of the new bridges will be built incorrectly, like the I-35 bridge was.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-35W_Mississippi_River_bridge
I blame Lin Manuel-Miranda.
When last published, the bill had less than 25% going to actual infrastructure.
It did, however, contain the following golden nuggets:
$10 Billion to Create a ‘Civilian Climate Corp”;
$20 Billion to ‘Advance Racial Equity and Environmental Justice;
$175 Billion in Subsidies for Electric Vehicles;
213 Billion to Build/Retrofit 2 Million Houses & Buildings;
$100 Billion for New Public Schools and Making School Lunches ‘Greener’;
$12 Billion for Community Colleges;
Billions to Eliminate ‘Racial and Gender Inequities’ in STEM;
$100 Billion to Expand Broadband Internet (And Government Control of It);
$25 Billion for Government Childcare Programs.
So I suppose we could refer to it as the Twenty-Five Percent Infrastructure Bill.
Maybe if you had said “Let’s go Brandon” some more it would have stopped the bill from being passed.
So now the playground bully is laughing at the kids he threw into the mud for not wearing clean clothes to school. Such a charming personality. It will serve him well in life.
What infrastructure is needed in Nebraska that Nebraskans can’t do?
First of all, what am I getting?
Did the bill suspend the usual environmental impact nonsense that drags all construction projects on forever? If this infrastructure is so vital that we had to pass it now, shouldn’t we fast track it by cutting the red tape?
The tunnels do transport large numbers of people between states. Those are jobs, corporate headquarters, residents and all the attendent taxes on both ends of the tunnel. That free flow of people and goods is a tax bonanza for those states, and if they want that to work better, the states that benefit should pay for it.
Federal fuel taxes are around a quarter per gallon, theoretically dedicated to maintenance and improvement of federal roads. State tax varies, but the principal remains the same. These are taxes imposed on the users of the infrastructure, the purest, bestest kinda tax levied directly on the parties that cause government spending. What went so far wrong that we need this steaming pile of fertilizer?
And Viruscop:
How would GOP initiatives benefit Democrat constituencies?
Didn’t Pelosi refuse to pass covid relief last summer? Was that intended only for red states or something? Did Democrat constituancies benefit in any way from Operation Warp Speed, the border wall (such as it currenty is), the new US/Canada/Mexico trade agreement, the impositon of tarrifs on Chinese imports made with slave labor, pulling out of the Paris Accords where we get to pay underdeveloped countries for being underdeveloped or the tax and regulatory reductions that led to the lowest minority unemployment in history. Honestly, do you think only Republicans benefited from those initiatives?
I don’t quite get what this means, and it sounds like some culturally out of touch phrase in a rural hellhole that could use some infrastructure, but are you saying that I’m responsible for the passage of the infrastructure bill? If so, I take full credit.
The south couldn’t destroy the rivers, which the north often used to their advantage.
To be fair, he’s still be better than J.B. Pritzker.