After Infrastructure Surrender, Republicans Deserve to Lose

By Philip Klein

Monday, August 09, 2021

 

Republicans have helped put President Biden several steps closer to passing his top legislative priority in voting multiple times to advance an unnecessary and costly infrastructure bill that will pave the way for Democrats to pass their multi-trillion dollar social agenda. This is a pathetic surrender that has been built on a mountain of lies.

 

Republicans who voted for this monstrosity claimed that the infrastructure bill they negotiated would be fully paid for. It isn’t. They claimed it would narrowly focus on traditional infrastructure such as fixing roads and bridges. It doesn’t. They claimed it would help convince moderate Democrats to abandon Biden’s larger bill. It won’t.

 

Republicans have voted for a bill that will add to the deficits at a time when debt as a share of the economy is on track to break the World War II record this year, according to Biden’s own budget. And at a time when inflation is on the rise.

 

When a party is in the minority, their primary job should be to block the majority party from enacting bad policies as they work on building their own agenda. Far from satisfying this basic requirement for a modern political party, Republicans have been complicit in helping grease the wheels for Democratic efforts to transform every aspect of American life — on health care, child care, college, the environment, and so much more. To make matters worse, they have done so in the service of a president who just this week had his administration issue an order that the Supreme Court had already indicated was illegal, that Congress did not act on, and that he acknowledged had no legal basis. Biden has given the middle finger to Republicans, and Republicans have effectively responded with two thumbs up. 

 

This is a reckless and irresponsible action from a policy perspective and malpractice from a political perspective. If Republicans lose big time in 2022, they have nobody but themselves to blame.

 

Here are the 18 Republicans, including Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, who voted with Democrats to advance this monstrosity:

 

Blunt (R-MO)

Burr (R-NC)

Capito (R-WV)

Cassidy (R-LA)

Collins (R-ME)

Cornyn (R-TX)

Cramer (R-ND)

Crapo (R-ID)

Fischer (R-NE)

Hoeven (R-ND)

McConnell (R-KY)

Murkowski (R-AK)

Portman (R-OH)

Risch (R-ID)

Romney (R-UT)

Sullivan (R-AK)

Tillis (R-NC)

Wicker (R-MS)