Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who had a hard time fixing potholes during his time as Mayor of South Bend, went on CNBC Thursday morning in an effort to sell President Joe Biden's $2 trillion Green New Deal "infrastructure" plan. It did not go well.
CNBC's Joe Kernan calls out Transportation Secretary Buttigieg: You're claiming "everything under the sun is infrastructure" pic.twitter.com/2zMhjV3nlw
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) May 13, 2021
During a briefing at the White House yesterday, Buttigieg had a difficult time explaining how the Biden administration was handling the cyber attack against the Colonial Pipeline system, resulting in gas shortages in nearly two dozen states.
Meanwhile, President Biden hosted Democrat and Republican congressional leaders at the White House yesterday in an effort to sell his plan.
"What the President believes his role is -- is to lead by example and to offer an alternative of leadership to the American people, which is reaching his hand across the aisle, offering to work with members of both parties on addressing issues the American people have concerns about," Press Secretary Jen Psaki said.
Senate Republicans have offered a much smaller, $568 billion true infrastructure plan as an alternative. From CNBC:
The GOP package would cost $568 billion, only a fraction of the Democratic president’s more than $2 trillion package. It also would not address policies such as care for elderly and disabled people, which Biden included in his plan.
The Republican outline would set aside:
$299 billion for roads and bridges
$65 billion for broadband
$61 billion for public transit
$44 billion for airports
$35 billion for drinking water and waste water systems
$20 billion for railways
$17 billion for ports and inland waterways
$14 billion for water storage
$13 billion for safety measures