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Voters Already Saying Yes to Biden’s Infrastructure Plan

John Micek on

Republicans on Capitol Hill, meanwhile, have blasted the plan, with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell calling it a "trojan horse," that will result in "more borrowed money and massive tax increases on all the productive parts of our economy.”

Putting aside the sheer hilarity of McConnell's sudden concern about fiscal responsibility after he supported adding up to $2 trillion to the national debt with the Trump tax cut, the Senate Republican leader nonetheless added that he thought there was enough room in the horse's saddlebags for a bridge in his home state.

Another Republican, Rep. Kevin Brady, of Texas, the ranking GOP member of the powerful House Ways & Means Committee, dismissed Biden's plan as a "sugar high.”

And Sen. Pat Toomey, of Pennsylvania, the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee and tax-and-spending hawk, said that while he believes "we can and should do more to rebuild our nation’s physical infrastructure,” Biden’s plan would “[undo] large portions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. That 2017 tax reform helped create the best American economy of my lifetime.”

So if the GOP is against all the things that the American public so clearly favors, it's only reasonable to ask what they support.

Some of the more immediate answers appear to be turning the reins of the party over to Trump loyalists who deny the reality of the Capitol insurrection and who propagate the myth of the stolen election. They fight make-believe culture wars over Dr. Seuss books. And they're doing all they can to push racist voter suppression bills over the goal line.

 

"The GOP remains a cult of personality for the worst president in U.S. history. It has become a bastion of irrationality, conspiracy mongering, racism, nativism and anti-scientific prejudices," the Post's Max Boot wrote in a separate column this week.

The White House, knowing the public is with them, is moving on without the GOP, by teeing up the infrastructure bill for approval through the parliamentary maneuver known as budget reconciliation, which would not require Republican support.

On Wednesday, Biden forcefully rebutted the GOP criticisms, saying "the idea of infrastructure has always evolved to meet the aspirations of the American people and their needs. And it is evolving again today" He also left the door open to compromise, even as Republicans contort themselves to oppose spending and a vision of government they once embraced: An America that thinks and builds big.

So, I'll try to frame the choice confronting the GOP in the only language they seem to understand:

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Copyright 2021 John Micek, All Rights Reserved. Credit: Cagle.com

 

 

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