The House was supposed to have voted last Thursday or Friday on the infrastructure bill, but Democratic disunity and insistence from progressives that the bill be tied to reconciliation has forced Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to announce the deadline of October 31. The $1.2 trillion infrastructure package, despite its bipartisan support, is hardly what one could call moderate. John Castorani, who served in the Army for nine years and is running to be the Republican candidate for the 7th district in Virginia, shared his concerns with Townhall about the bill in an interview about his candidacy.
The district, represented by Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) who beat the Republican incumbent, Rep. Dave Brat in 2018 during the blue wave, is made up of counties in Central Virginia, including the crucial suburbs.
The infrastructure bill in the House, Castorani said, "is where we're going to lose a little bit of our fiscal conservativism and fiscal responsibility as a nation." Castorani says this "is what we're seeing right now" with how "spending is going through the roof" and "we're adding addendum after addendum." In the district he says he's heard most about the per use mileage tax, which is concerning for residents of the district who commute to other parts of the commonwealth for work, thus making this "another tax on the middle class."
The tax involvement is a particular issue for Castorani, especially since he is "one of those people who believes we don't need taxation, at all" and is someone who "hate[s] taxes more than anything." He shared that he's signed the Americans for Tax Reform pledge that he won't sign anything that will raise taxes.
Spanberger, as a so-called moderate, has been in the news for how important the passage of infrastructure legislation is to her. Yet she has been quiet when it comes to weighing in on any frustration caused by the delay on the vote, unlike more vocal moderates, such as Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), who tweeted his frustration.
That frustration from Spanberger does appear to be there, though. Following a visit from Biden to the Capitol on Friday to meet with the House Democratic Caucus, Spanberger was quoted by Mike Lillis and Scott Wong in the Hill:
Why are we having a conversation again if there's not a change in status, right? Why would we sit, why would we have an hourlong meeting to talk about all the things we agree on and then not decide on doing anything new?" said vulnerable Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.).
Asked what the point of the meeting was, Spanberger replied: "I'm unsure."
Spanberger was also the focus of Kristina Peterson's piece last month for the Wall Street Journal, "Democrats Hear Conflicting Messages From Voters on $3.5 Trillion Plan," which did mention infrastructure at one point.
Castorani, who pointed out that he is the only combat veteran in the race, also spoke about his views on Afghanistan. A consistent message of his campaign for key issues touched upon how "when you look at the fraud, waste, and abuse," Castorani pointed out, "it does take somebody who has been involved in it, especially from an intelligence professional like myself who can understand not only the spending aspect but also the military decision-making process."
He mentioned that currently there are only 38 combat veterans serving in Congress, which is the lowest number since World War II.
"I'm not saying you have to be a combat veteran to seek public office, but there used to be a time in the 80's, under the Reagan administration, where our legislative body was mostly combat veterans from Vietnam and World War II, and they had a sense of service about them," Castorani offered.
Castorani's position is consistent with how Americans view the issue, which is to say, as Castorani puts it, the withdrawal from Afghanistan "was most certainly needed, and warranted," but that there were multiple issues with many aspects of the withdrawal.
He also reminded that President Joe Biden was a senator and then the vice president for the first 15 years of the conflict in Afghanistan, which is why Castorani is not buying it that Biden is blaming former President Donald Trump. "For him to get out there and say that it's President Trump's fault, and he thought that this, that the Taliban wasn't gonna be resurgent, I find that just absolutely just laughable," Castorani said, pointing to how "for the past 10 years, intelligence reporting has shown that the Taliban is 100 percent resurgent."
While Castorani feels "we had an opportunity to withdraw the correct way," he also pointed out that problems go back to the start of the conflict, particularly highlighting how "we failed to realize the tribalism of Afghanistan, we failed to realize the culture," also pointing out" a democratic republic, our form of government was never going to succeed there," with the central government in Kabul having no say over village elders, "which we failed to identify at all levels."
He nevertheless stressed his caveat to thank the Afghan veterans we know in our lives, who did their jobs and were not the ones making policy-making decisions.
Spanberger, despite previously worked for the CIA as an operations officer, and even worked on projects that involved intel gathering on issues like terrorism, has not spoken out much about Afghanistan when it comes to criticizing the failures of the Biden administration.
A response that did publicly come from the congresswoman was an August 26 statement written by Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH) that went on to be endorsed by the bipartisan Problem Solver's Caucus. It had called on the administration to reconsider the August 31 deadline.
Other candidates running to be the Republican nominee for the 7th district include Tina Ramirez and Taylor Keeney, both of whom Townhall has also written about.