While no one was watching on Friday night, Democrats, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, managed to scare up 13 Republican votes to pass the stalled $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill in the House. The deal-making for months, in the end, turned out to be meaningless since the progressive wing of the Democratic caucus was never signing on to a mere $1.2 trillion in spending on infrastructure, and other non-infrastructure items, without several more trillion on a sweeping socialist agenda that would fundamentally alter the U.S. economy. The “squad,” as they’re known, voted against the bill, meaning Pelosi needed GOP support to push it across the finish line. Last night, she got it, and the bill now heads to Biden’s desk.
Here’s the list of House Republicans that voted for Biden and Pelosi’s $1.2 trillion “infrastructure” bill:
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pennsylvania)
Rep. Don Bacon (Nebraska)
Rep. Don Young (Alaska)
Rep. Fred Upton (Michigan)
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Illinois)
Rep. Jeff Van Drew (New Jersey)
Rep. John Katko (New York)
Rep. Tom Reed (New York)
Rep. Andrew Garbarino (New York)
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (New York)
Rep. Chris Smith (New Jersey)
Rep. David McKinley (West Virginia)
Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (Ohio)
As it stands this morning, Democrats get the victory they were hoping to get before the elections this week, just a few days late thanks to cross-over Republicans:
House lawmakers late Friday adopted a roughly $1.2 trillion measure to improve the country’s roads, bridges, pipes, ports and Internet connections, overcoming their own internecine divides to secure a long-sought burst in federal investment and deliver President Biden a major legislative win.
The bipartisan 228-to-206 vote marked the final milestone for the first of two pieces in the president’s sprawling economic agenda. The outcome sends to Biden’s desk an initiative that promises to deliver its benefits to all 50 states, a manifestation of his 2020 campaign pledge to rejuvenate the economy in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic and “build back better.”
While Democrats, and President Biden, will be taking a victory lap after their poor showing on Election Day, Republicans are split over whether it was wise to give Democrats a trillion dollars in spending given the current trajectory of inflation. Senator Joe Manchin has repeatedly said he wouldn’t support this reckless spending due to fears of increased and uncontrollable inflation as a result.
There are 13 House Republicans that will be defending their infrastructure vote heading into next year’s midterm elections. Some of them may possibly face a primary over it depending on how far the backlash reaches:
Some Republicans who voted “no” called the bill “communist” or “socialist” and decried their GOP colleagues who voted with Democrats.
“Republicans who voted for the Democrats’ socialist spending bill are the very reason why Americans don’t trust Congress,” Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, tweeted.
Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., called the bill “garbage,” and argued that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi couldn’t get it passed without help from the 13 Republicans. The vote was 228-206, with six Democrats, all progressives, voting against it.
“RINOS just passed this wasteful $1.2 trillion dollar ‘infrastructure’ bill,” Boebert wrote on Twitter. “Time to name names and hold these fake republicans accountable.”
The 13 crossover Republicans just unnecessarily handed Democrats a win and something to congratulate themselves over with a bi-partisan passed bill. As someone said about the campaign of Terry McAuliffe as it imploded last week, when your opponent is like a slow-motion trainwreck, just get out of the way, don’t try to help.
Democrats have been riddled with infighting for months as progressive socialists within the party hold out for outrageous amounts of spending on many liberal pet projects. The GOP was doing fine by standing back and letting House Democrats knife each other daily and spend their time trying to appease the unappeasable within their own ranks.
As Philip Klein wrote at National Review, Republicans just tossed President Biden a life raft that even his own party wasn’t offering, and each of them should be primaried for turning on their own constituents:
Politically, it’s unclear what Republicans are thinking. Biden entered this week reeling from a devastating rebuke of his presidency by voters in areas of the country thought to be reliably Democratic. He headed into the 2022 election year a wounded animal, and Republicans stood to make major gains. Now, they tossed him a life raft and allowed him to put bipartisan gloss on his radical agenda.
Every Republican who voted for this monstrosity who is not already retiring should be primaried and defeated by candidates who will actually resist the Left-wing agenda. Those who are retiring should be shamed for the rest of their lives. It also is not too soon to be asking whether Representative Kevin McCarthy should be ousted from leadership for his inability to keep his caucus together on such a crucial vote.
After the results in Virginia, New Jersey, and all over the country, it became abundantly clear that Biden is not popular and his agenda in Congress is even less popular. Why would any House Republican, looking at a good year ahead for their party, revive Biden’s chances to pass this trillion-dollar boondoggle?
Both parties, at times, end up snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. For Republicans, there was no reason to advance this legislation while Democrats couldn’t muster support within their own party.
As Klein also notes, very little of the bill has anything to do with traditional infrastructure, but serves as a down-payment and incentive to pass the larger bill Democrats are trying to ram through using reconciliation:
The federal government already spends more than enough on infrastructure to meet our needs and the COVID-19 bailout money left many states awash in cash. Despite promises, only a small portion of the bill focuses on traditional infrastructure such as fixing roads and bridges and the legislation (soon to be law) will add $256 billion to deficits. It will also help grease the wheels for the passage of the larger multi-trillion welfare bill that will expand Medicare and Obamacare, initiate a federal takeover of preschool and child care, and impose economically devastating tax increases on individuals and businesses.
It’s a shame House Republicans couldn’t stick together on this any better than the Senate Republicans did. Calling this an “infrastructure” bill even though it’s filled with billions of dollars in non-infrastructure spending is why Americans tend to hate and distrust Congress. Every piece of legislation contains millions of dollars in unrelated garbage and social spending, yet Republicans never seem to learn and just keep signing-on on anyway.
There are literally billions of dollars in unspent Covid-19 aid from 2020 still laying around, why did we need another trillion dollars on the pile?