Republican Obstruction on Infrastructure

I recall a few years ago being in France and the UK with a politically conservative friend who marveled at the Metro in Paris and the Undergrond in London, not to mention both countries' passenger rail systems.  This individual questioned why America doesn't have equally good systems and infrastructure to which I responded "because don't want to pay taxes and will not fund them."  That pretty much ended the conversation, but underscore what we see playing out in Washington, D.C. as Republicans make excuses for not supporting the Biden administration's so-called American Jobs Plan which would benefit countless numbers of their constituents.  The hypocrisy - something these politicians share with their evangelical supporters - is that they have supported elements of the proposal in the past and seemingly hope their party base is too stupid to figure out they are getting screwed yet again so that the very wealthy and large corporations can pay lower, or in some cases, no federal income tax.  As a former Republican notes in a column in the Washington Post, the GOP's talking points are crumbling.  Here are highlights: 

President Biden and his advisers have begun to engage with lawmakers on his American Jobs Plan. Biden met with a bipartisan group of lawmakers on Monday, and he and aides have been on the phone with both Democrats and Republicans in Congress. The clear message from the administrations is that ideas and negotiations are welcome. The only nonstarter is doing nothing.

Meanwhile, Republicans sound as though they’re all over the map. Despite claims to be the newly populist party of working men and women, Republican leaders on Capitol Hill have been predicting economic doom should corporations be forced to pay any more than they presently are in federal taxes (which, in the case of more than 50 companies, amounted to zero last year).

 However, that red line is already getting smudged.  Appearing on CNN, Sen. Roger Wicker, a staunch conservative from Mississippi, declared, “I’m not ruling out some kind of pay-for, absolutely.” He went on: “If you’re going to spend, say, $600 billion over several years on an infrastructure program that’s much bigger than we’ve had before, absolutely. We have to be grown-ups and say it has to be paid for so we’re not going to be able to come up with that money out of thin air.”

Many Republicans seem wedded to quibbling over the definition of “infrastructure.” . . . In 2018, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was all in favor of a farm bill that included “conservation programs, outdoor recreation, and upgraded watershed and drinking water infrastructure.” He was so gung-ho about the bill that he praised inclusion of provisions that “enhance infrastructure investment in rural communities, on everything from local water projects to broadband internet to helping curb the drug epidemic in rural America.” . . . . If Biden changed his bill’s title to the “American Jobs, Farm and Energy Act,” would McConnell drop his aversion to including water, broadband and energy infrastructure provisions?

McConnell is far from the only Republican who previously favored components of the Biden bill — before Biden entered the Oval Office. Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) now objects to spending for items he doesn’t consider “infrastructure.” It was not always so. In the past, he has supported expanding water infrastructure and broadband infrastructure.

If Republicans not so long ago viewed broadband access, job training, pipelines and water projects — to name just a few — as worthwhile “infrastructure” investments, then perhaps they should drop the semantics and start debating over what we need, how much we need and how to pay for it. They might recall how much their own constituents want these items and then try legislating instead of polishing their talking points for right-wing media.