“The transportation invoice, I believe, must be a transportation invoice, not a Inexperienced New Deal,” mentioned Consultant Sam Graves of Missour
“The transportation invoice, I believe, must be a transportation invoice, not a Inexperienced New Deal,” mentioned Consultant Sam Graves of Missouri, the highest Republican on the committee. “It must be about roads and bridges, and I hope that as this committee works on our subsequent main invoice, that we bear in mind to prioritize transportation infrastructure.”
It stays unclear whether or not prime Democrats, with slim majorities in each chambers and management of the White Home, will likely be keen to curtail their ambitions to fulfill Republicans. They’ve refused to rule out utilizing a fast-track finances course of, often known as reconciliation, to bypass Republican opposition and the 60-vote filibuster threshold within the Senate to advance Mr. Biden’s infrastructure initiatives on strictly party-line votes.
Chatting with reporters on Thursday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California mentioned Democrats would pursue a bipartisan legislative bundle however must “make a judgment” about the way to accomplish extra formidable objectives associated to addressing local weather change and financial inequality that Republicans won’t help.
“One of many challenges that we face is we can’t simply accept what we will agree on with out recognizing that this must be a invoice for the long run,” she mentioned. Among the many particular proposals she mentioned she favored was electrifying the U.S. Postal Service fleet.
Repeatedly pressed by Republicans for a dedication to compromise, Mr. Buttigieg assured lawmakers that “the president strongly prefers a bipartisan strategy, and so do I,” and noticed that he had “but to see a Republican bridge or a Democratic pothole.”
That help, nonetheless, will more than likely hinge on each the scope of the bundle put ahead by Democrats and the mechanisms for paying for the laws. On prime of passing the dozen annual spending payments wanted to maintain the federal government funded in 2020, Congress authorized greater than $three trillion in emergency spending to handle the financial and well being toll of the pandemic.
Early within the listening to, Republican lawmakers interrogated Mr. Buttigieg on how the administration deliberate to pay for such a big spending invoice, whereas elevating considerations about whether or not funds can be distributed equally throughout the nation. Consultant Don Younger, Republican of Alaska, pressed Mr. Buttigieg on whether or not the Biden administration had a technique to pay for greater than a trillion {dollars} in spending wants.