Democrats dangle billions of dollars in infrastructure earmarks in front of conflicted Republicans
Ahead of President Biden's next big piece of legislation, one Democrat says the party is "perfectly willing" to evenly divide spending earmarks with Republicans — but if not, they'll happily take them just "on the Democratic side."
A Tuesday report from Bloomberg discusses the "heated debate" in the Republican Party about whether to take part in the return of spending earmarks as Biden prepares for a major infrastructure package, with fiscal hawks opposed to bringing them back and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) arguing they "have been associated with excess and would represent a turn to the worst."
At the same time, Bloomberg writes that Democrats believe Republicans ultimately "will go along once they see billions of dollars set to flow" to their colleagues' Democratic districts.
"I'm perfectly willing to divide it equally between Republicans and Democrats, and so it will be up to them if they want it," Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said. "If they don't, we'll just have it on the Democratic side. But I think enough of them would like to have it on both sides."
https://www.yahoo.com/news/democrats-dangle-billions-dollars-infrastructure-164000527.html
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Just one among many goals we can all understand immediately, we want every American to have broadband internet access, 100% connectivity.
It's expected to be heavily oriented to climate initiatives; Biden's shown he's strongly committed to major actions on that front, which affects and involves everything.
Pelosi: "the list goes on and on. It's not just roads and bridges, mass transit and high-speed rail, it's also about water systems. Some of the water systems we have are over 100 years old."
Business Insider: "Biden campaigned for a $2 trillion infrastructure bill that would focus on climate change, energy reform, and expanding the middle class. But according to Politico, some Democrats are already privately discussing going as high as $4 trillion. It's a price tag that has the tentative support of Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a critical swing vote in an evenly-divided Senate."
"Just."
Jobs, jobs, jobs. Expanding the middle class. International tech competitiveness. All involved.
