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In huge surprise, Republicans are still not willing to pay for infrastructure

Published on 44 Comments on In huge surprise, Republicans are still not willing to pay for infrastructure

Oh please, Republicans said last week, just give us until Monday. Please please please. We promise to have all the loose ends tied up by Monday.

Well, it's Monday:

The bipartisan infrastructure negotiations entered their darkest phase in more than a month on Monday, with the parties openly feuding over policy and former President Donald Trump urging Republicans to drop the effort altogether.

....The talks seem in danger of collapse given the public acrimony and finger-pointing on Monday, after a fruitless weekend of discussions. The group of 10 senators leading the talks will huddle again on Monday evening, in an attempt to rescue the fragile negotiations.

The bipartisan group of lawmakers hoped to reach a final agreement by early this week after a vote to advance undrafted legislation failed last week. But that appears unlikely, with several issues outstanding. Among the biggest sticking points is transit, but broadband has also become a point of contention. The bill’s finances are also viewed as shaky.

That's it? Just transit, broadband, and how to pay for it? Golly, that's—

Practically the entire damn bill. I accept that a sincere effort to push for a bipartisan deal was probably necessary, but come on. For six months Republicans have been unwilling to come up with an acceptable way to pay for anything, and apparently they still haven't. And since infrastructure isn't free, that pretty much kills the whole thing.

Of course, sometimes stories like this are leaked just before everyone comes to a miraculous agreement. I suppose it might happen this time. But I sure wouldn't bet on it.

44 thoughts on “In huge surprise, Republicans are still not willing to pay for infrastructure”

  1. jeff-fisher

    Republicans have two actual red lines:

    The rich pay for nothing.
    Nothing actually passes.

    Delay is their goal.

  2. Steve Stein

    "For six months Republicans have been unwilling to come up with an acceptable way to pay for anything"
    Six months? They never paid for anything they enacted with the former guy, so it's more like 5 years!

    1. cld

      5 decades, aside from whatever they claimed they were paying for by lowering taxes on the wealthy because that will magically bring in more taxes.

  3. catnhat7

    Are the Republicans being disingenuous and trying to delay the negotiations, well of course!

    With that said, if the reporting is to believed, the GOP does have pay for ideas (user fees, privatization of assets, sell more radio spectrum, likely most gas well leases etc); rather, these ideas are not acceptable to the Democrats. Thus, it appears to me there is a lack of sufficient overlapping pay for ideas, rather than “Republicans are still not willing to pay for infrastructure”, is more accurate.

  4. Salamander

    Is Joe Manchin convinced YET that every attempt at "bipartisanship" has failed, and it's time to side with the Democrats?

      1. bebopman

        Cue Groucho Marx

        [PROFESSOR WAGSTAFF]
        I don't know what they have to say
        It makes no difference anyway
        Whatever it is, I'm against it
        No matter what it is or who commenced it
        I'm against it

        Your proposition may be good
        But let's have one thing understood:
        Whatever it is, I'm against it
        And even when you've changed it or condensed it
        I'm against it

        I'm opposed to it
        On general principles, I'm opposed to it

        [STUDENTS]
        He's opposed to it
        In fact, indeed, he's opposed to it

        [WAGSTAFF]
        For months before my son was born
        I used to yell from night till morn
        "Whatever it is, I'm against it."
        And I've been yelling since I first commenced it
        I'm against it

    2. Mitch Guthman

      It’s looking like the thing that Manchin has been selling for Republican campaign cash ad probably post-Senate opportunities is outright sabotage of the Democratic agenda. This isn’t a centrist guy who’s the best the Democrats can do in a red state. Joe Manchin is a guy who is beholden to Republican big-money donors.

      We need to dump him at the earliest opportunity and made absolute certain that nobody in a Democratic administration will ever return his calls or the calls of anyone who pays him off and we need to made equally certain that everyone knows that, too.

      1. Spadesofgrey

        Nope. Think again. Manchin is a globalist, much like all fossil fuelites are. But him staying and pushing the house/Senate to public sentiment is a favor. Dems make gains, then he can leave.

        1. Mitch Guthman

          I do not think Manchin is remotely in touch with the public sentiment that delivered the White House and the House to the Democrats. It is clear that he is a Republican in Democrats clothing whose goal is to sabotage the Democrats agenda and to prevent us from making gains at the expense of his Republican allies and paymasters.

          1. Spadesofgrey

            Lol, delivered??? Give me a break. Democrats lost seats in the House and only barely won Senate seats despite a accounting advantage. Yes, Manchin is public sentiment.

  6. jamesepowell

    Democrats need to get done whatever they can get done without Republicans, then go on an aggressive PR campaign to stress that every benefit comes from Biden & the Democrats, that Republicans opposed it all, and if they want more, they have to elect more Democrats in 2022.

    Repeat this several times a day: Winning in 2022 is everything.

    1. RZM

      Yes, yes and yes. 100 times a day. Full court press on the Sabbath gasbag shows.
      And they need to take it to Mitch McConnell and just talk over his whining. In fact if he isn't whining then they aren't doing it right. In short the The Dems need to go all in and have faith that the American people will take their side.

      1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

        "Nativity in Black" is allegedly about the time Ozzy, Tony, & Geezer set Bill Ward's beard on fire.

        Any chance we could set Chuck Todd's beard on fire on the next Meet the Press?

  7. cld

    Great description of MAGA-voters, comparing Trump's appeal to the Manson family and Jim Jones,

    https://www.rawstory.com/trump-cult-2653974187/

    . . . .
    As the conservative columnist notes that, at the heart of "Trumpism," is an appeal to those suffering from social isolation which, in turn, makes them susceptible to appeals such as "Make America Great Again" as promised by the former president.
    . . . .
    Writing that Trump's fans "followed his rallies like they were on tour with The Grateful Dead," he added, "Instead of tie-dyed shirts, they donned red 'MAGA' hats. Instead of being young adventurers running away from their parents, these 'front-row Joes' (as he calls them) tended to be people who were 'retired or close to it' and 'estranged from their families or otherwise without children'; they also had 'plenty of time on their hands.' What they found was that 'Trump had, in a surprising way, made their lives richer.' His rallies gave them a 'reason to travel the country, staying at one another's homes, sharing hotel rooms and carpooling. Two had married—and later divorced—by Trump's second year in office.'"
    . . . .

    1. Salamander

      Uh-huh. So the MAGAhats are "retired" -- aka "on the government dole." They're "estranged from their families" -- wonder why? Or "otherwise without children" -- so, no woman would have them, either? And "plenty of time on their hands" -- while they howl about the people who take time off from work without pay to march for social justice.

      And that "tie-dye" thing? That hasn't been in style for half a century. It went out with the "hippies." Truly, these are the people that time forgot.

      1. cld

        Here you have, exactly, social isolation and alienation organized, motivated and projected to create an impregnable epistemic bubble.

      1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

        "There's a saying in Texas, & I'm pretty sure it's in West Virginia, that goes, 'Fool me once, shame on... shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on... won't get fooled again".

        1. akapneogy

          Happy times with just a handful of hijacked planes fiown into skyscrapers, and an occasional presidential lie to bog us down in twenty year wars. And Trump waiting in the wings. Best couple of decades ever.

      1. akapneogy

        With bigotry, ignorance and plutocracy already lined up against them, Democrats haven't much manouvering room.

            1. Mitch Guthman

              I don't see how that follows. Their plan to overthrow democracy seems to be going very smoothly and without any meaningful opposition from a Democratic Party that has neither the cohesiveness nor the determination to preserve our democratic system. You simply cannot out-organize a gerrymandered legislature which appropriates for itself the power to overturn election results it doesn't like. Similarly, "demography" is not destiny when political representation in this country is apportioned largely on the basis of sparsely populated land mass controlled by the Republican Party. I really don't see why exactly their future looks bleak.

          2. Spadesofgrey

            Lol, overthrow it into poverty, debt collapse, supply lines and food shortages. Your one of the most ignorant sows in this page.

            I would not be opposed to using Nuclear weapons either. Republicans would be roasted 2 times over.

    2. Spadesofgrey

      Nothing to blow up except the Republican party itself. The backlash would destroy that party itself.

      I would just extend the debt ceiling by executive order and begin arresting traitors.

  11. Marlowe

    Of course, it's even worse on the "pay fors" then you indicate since the fake Republican moderates actually agreed to additional IRS funding to increase taxe collections and then reneged because of Republican opposition (from Senators who were never in a million years going to vote to end the filibuster on this bill even in the fantasy land of both sides beltway journalists).

  12. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    In Susan Collins's remake of her cousin Phil's song, the song's narrator also is the one who drowns the victim.

  13. KawSunflower

    Waiting for one of my senators - Mark Warner- to state that he is no longer expecting any good-faith participation by those Republicans he was counting on for an agreement by COB today.

    1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

      These eyes... do do do do-do... COVID every nite.... for you....

      The hacking's all mine...cause you broke it, you broke it.

  16. Jasper_in_Boston

    I would be perfectly happy with the reconciliation bill alone; indeed, I think Democrats might be better off if that’s the outcome. First, I think it’s likely if the bipartisan bill fails, they will fold some of its infrastructure spending provisions into the larger reconciliation bill. And secondly, my gut instinct suggests the likelihood of the reconciliation bill’s passing the Senate shrinks if the bipartisan bill passes first (In other words, it wouldn’t shock me if Manchin or Sinema desert their conference on the reconciliation bill if the first bill gets through that chamber). And, needless to say, if I had to choose only one of the two bills, the reconciliation bill is vastly superior.

    1. colbatguano

      I agree. Why let the Republicans take any credit when their sole focus has been to dilute and delay passage. Just throw the good parts into the reconciliation bill and then campaign on that and the fact they love tax cheats. Pelosi seems to understand this at least.

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