Infrastructure negotiations between the Biden administration, Senate Republicans, and Senate Democrats are stalled given Democrats’ spending demands, even after GOP lawmakers reached a deal with President Biden. After a compromise was reached, Biden and congressional Democrats quickly said that a supplemental spending bill must also be passed.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is urging the president not to let Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) hold the bipartisan bill hostage.
“The President has appropriately delinked a potential bipartisan infrastructure bill from the massive, unrelated tax-and-spend plans that Democrats want to pursue on a partisan basis. Now I am calling on President Biden to engage Leader Schumer and Speaker Pelosi and make sure they follow his lead. Unless Leader Schumer and Speaker Pelosi walk-back their threats that they will refuse to send the president a bipartisan infrastructure bill unless they also separately pass trillions of dollars for unrelated tax hikes, wasteful spending, and Green New Deal socialism, then President Biden’s walk-back of his veto threat would be a hollow gesture,” McConnell said in a statement. “Republicans have been negotiating in bipartisan good faith to meet the real infrastructure needs of our nation. The President cannot let congressional Democrats hold a bipartisan bill hostage over a separate and partisan process.”
Republicans have been negotiating in bipartisan good faith to meet the real infrastructure needs of our nation. The President cannot let congressional Democrats hold a bipartisan bill hostage over a separate and partisan process. https://t.co/oN6ZY48wp3
— Leader McConnell (@LeaderMcConnell) June 28, 2021
Senate Budget Chair Bernie Sanders (I-VT), also said that a bipartisan bill is dead-on-arrival without a substantial reconciliation package in addition.
Let me be clear: There will not be a bipartisan infrastructure deal without a reconciliation bill that substantially improves the lives of working families and combats the existential threat of climate change. No reconciliation bill, no deal. We need transformative change NOW.
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) June 27, 2021