- Jun 6, 2007
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Republicans should not be political about the infrastructure bill, remarks from leading Republican Senators like John Thune from South Dakota where he indicates cooperation from Republicans will be imperiled if Democrats tee up a second non-traditional infrastructure bill that they will pass through reconciliation after they get the Republicans to support them on a traditional infrastructure bill. Republicans if they take this perspective or stance it will not be in the best interests of America and it will not facilitate them doing their duty to cooperate in governing America. Republicans need to keep in mind that there is more at stake then whether their position is what is right on the specific issues or champions good values; if Republicans sink a bi-partisan traditional infrastructure bill then what happens is that Democrats will use this need to pass a traditional infrastructure bill by this September to pass their reckless and irresponsible larger infrastructure spending bill. It will be a repeat of the last Pandemic Relief Bill disaster; yes America needed a relief bill that would extend unemployment benefits, fund acquisition and distribution of the vaccines, send people checks really in a ditch with the economic destruction caused by the pandemic, etc. but what Democrats did is they took the nation's compelling need for a one to one point two trillion dollar relief package and they manipulated the situation and turned the bill into a one point nine trillion dollar bill. Further Republicans not passing a traditional infrastructure bill you tie the hands of the few good Democrats left in that caucus, like the West Virginian Senator Joe Manchin, to stop a major looting of the U.S. Treasury that will take place if the liberal Democrat leadership in Washington gets to work its will with the bill; if the bill is a must pass bill then these few good Democrat legislators can't stop it even if the bill embodies horrendous financial stewardship of America's finances because the nation will be too badly hurt by their derailing the bill!
On a traditional renewal of the current infrastructure bill by the September expiration date from both parties' behavior the American people should be able to have some peace and confidence that the parties should be able to readily reach a bi-partisan deal. For one as the Wall Street Journal indicated in this past Thursday's edition both parties recognize the nation's need for a significant increase in infrastructure spending: "The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in 2019 thought new highway funding should increase by more than 27% compared with original FAST Act {current infrastructure bill} levels. The relevant House committee proposed that the total funding for all aspects of the FAST Act—including highways, transit and railroads—should increase by more than 40%." Also, Republicans might want to keep in mind that if they do a traditional infrastructure bill at this time they can long-term help control this expense for the nation of its infrastructure bills by this I mean whatever infrastructure bill is passed will one day within the next decade have to be renewed if it is a clean basic infrastructure bill it will be relatively easy for that later Congress to renew it in a fiscally responsible manner but if the infrastructure bill is a "Washington goes on a spending spree" bill when renewal comes the bill that the future Congress is working from will have such an inflated price tag it will be difficult for that future Congress to rein in the price tag of that future replacement bill into the very responsible range which is what the majority of the American people want of Washington!
On a traditional renewal of the current infrastructure bill by the September expiration date from both parties' behavior the American people should be able to have some peace and confidence that the parties should be able to readily reach a bi-partisan deal. For one as the Wall Street Journal indicated in this past Thursday's edition both parties recognize the nation's need for a significant increase in infrastructure spending: "The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in 2019 thought new highway funding should increase by more than 27% compared with original FAST Act {current infrastructure bill} levels. The relevant House committee proposed that the total funding for all aspects of the FAST Act—including highways, transit and railroads—should increase by more than 40%." Also, Republicans might want to keep in mind that if they do a traditional infrastructure bill at this time they can long-term help control this expense for the nation of its infrastructure bills by this I mean whatever infrastructure bill is passed will one day within the next decade have to be renewed if it is a clean basic infrastructure bill it will be relatively easy for that later Congress to renew it in a fiscally responsible manner but if the infrastructure bill is a "Washington goes on a spending spree" bill when renewal comes the bill that the future Congress is working from will have such an inflated price tag it will be difficult for that future Congress to rein in the price tag of that future replacement bill into the very responsible range which is what the majority of the American people want of Washington!
