GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell suggested over the weekend his caucus is open to spending up to $800 billion on infrastructure, The Hill reported on Monday, May 10, 2021 (read story here).
That’s a lot of money, but in Washington D.C.’s political calculus, it’s a slap-down of Biden’s much larger $2.2 trillion proposal, which goes beyond repairing roads and bridges. It includes $85 billion of funding for mass transit, and money for things like green energy and child care (see more details here). And at just 35% of Biden’s ask, it shows how dim the prospects are for bipartisan legislating even on things the parties broadly agree on.
Last winter’s collapse of Texas’ electricity grid puts pressure on Republicans to agree to infrastructure improvements like grid modernization, but Biden wants to pay for his program party by reversing a chunk of Trump’s tax cuts for billionaires and corporations, while Republicans want to limit spending partly to preserve those tax cuts.
Photo: Shivering Houston residents lined up to fill propane tanks in February 2021; read commentary here