To hear Democrats and the national media tell it, the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill being debated in the Senate is all but a done deal. But Tennessee Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty are saying something different.
The two Republicans – and others – are complaining because the bipartisan group of sponsoring senators had said the bill would be paid for and would not add to the country’s ballooning deficit.
But on Thursday the Congressional Budget Office released its highly awaited score on the bill, and it’s a stunner. The bill not only won’t break even but will increase the deficit by $256 billion over the next decade. An independent analysis by the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Wharton Budget Model suggests the deficit actually would be $351 billion more, according to The New York Times.
It just so happened Thursday also was when senators spent the entire day assembling a package of amendments to the bill, the conclusion to which would have moved the measure closer to a vote.
But Hagerty, despite pressure from some fellow Republicans, would not vote to move the process forward.
“Earlier this afternoon,” he said in a statement, “the Congressional Budget Office released its long awaited score for this infrastructure bill. While we’ve heard for weeks that it would be paid for, it’s not. It didn’t just come up short, it came up a quarter of a trillion dollars short. … Despite this news, I was asked to consent to expedite the process and pass it. I could not, in good conscience, allow that to happen at this hour … so I objected.”
Meanwhile, Blackburn, late last month when the long-awaited bill was released, voiced a similar sentiment.
“We can’t spend money we don’t have. Period,” she said in a statement also signed by Sens. Rick Scott, R-Fla., Mike Braun, R-Ind., Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Josh Hawley, R-Mo., Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Mike Lee, R-Utah. “Just look at what is happening with inflation. We were promised this infrastructure bill was fully paid for, and now we see that it’s not. This was nothing more than a bait and switch. $205 billion of this bill was to be paid for with re-purposed COVID funds. The latest proposal only shows $50 billion in COVID funds being used, as well as a lot of the proposed ‘pay-fors’ missing. … We support infrastructure, but it has to be paid for. This proposal isn’t it.”
One of the names on that statement, Cruz, was one of the senators seen talking to Hagerty apparently in an effort to get him to change his mind, according to Politico.
So, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., will take up the matter again today, and the bill’s supporters need a filibuster-ending 60 votes to end debate. That means the vote will need all 50 Democrats and at least 10 Republicans – who apparently aren’t bothered the 2,700-page bill doesn’t pretend to be paid for – to move forward.
If they get the votes to end the filibuster, without Hagerty and Blackburn, the bill will be all but a done deal. The two Tennessee senators and other Republicans who have objected all have said they want an infrastructure bill that will help rebuild roads, bridge and rail systems, and provide more access to broadband – and the nation certainly needs it – but they don’t like to feel double-crossed when it comes to paying for it.
It may turn out the bill’s supporters have the votes they need to move forward, but we appreciate our senators voicing support for financial soundness and truth in legislation.
Hagerty’s objection Thursday was especially principled because of what he knows comes after the infrastructure bill – the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion wish list of a measure that they want to pass through budget reconciliation. That bill will have the vote of no Republicans, may be able to pass with a 51-50 majority (with Vice President Kamala Harris supplying the tiebreaking vote) through a vague tie-in to budgetary matters and does not even come close to being paid for, even with suggested higher corporate taxes and higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans.
“[T]he objective of the majority,” Tennessee’s first-term senator said, “is to hurry up and pass this [infrastructure] bill so that they can move quickly to their $3.5 trillion, tax-and-spend spree designed to implement the Green New Deal and increase Americans’ dependence on the government.”
The Democrats’ plan wasn’t lost on Blackburn, either.
“Let’s not forget,” she said in the statement with other senators late last month, “this is just the first step in the Democrats’ plan to pass their … tax and spend liberal wish list.”
We would like to believe there are enough Republicans who insist a needed infrastructure bill ought to be paid for, but we fear many have forgotten the importance of meeting a budget. We should know today who in the GOP adheres to the party’s financially responsible past and who does not.