Amid signs of bipartisanship on infrastructure, McConnell has liberals in fits
There’s a breeze of bipartisanship sweeping through Washington this week, but to liberals it feels like a stealth cold front being manufactured by Mitch McConnell.
A Senate committee unanimously cleared a bill to pay for surface transportation projects for five years. There’s real talk between Republicans and the White House about meeting in the middle around a broader infrastructure package nearing $1 trillion. And the full Senate is inching toward passing $100 billion for advanced technology research and development, with significant Republican support.
“I mean, who would have thought that the Senate would adopt an amendment from Rand Paul by voice vote?,” exclaimed Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Wednesday, following a bipartisan vote to restrict funding certain types of research in China. “We did it.”
None of this would be proceeding without McConnell giving his GOP caucus the OK. And that’s what has progressives suspicious, if not downright alarmed.
Sure, bipartisanship sounds ideal. But the slow-boil churn to gain Republican votes without alienating Democrats in a 50-50 Senate takes time. And with the clock ticking down towards the Memorial Day holiday, those on the left fret that McConnell and his loyal Republican lieutenants are just running down the clock to water down President Joe Biden’s aspirations.
“The Republicans are dragging out the infrastructure talks because they know the more clock they run down before the Dems ultimately go it alone on infrastructure, the less time remains for Dems to push democracy reform bills like, S.1 and the John Lewis Act,” said Brian Fallon, a Democratic strategist who worked on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
“If Senate Republicans are willing to block a bipartisan investigation … of a mob that tried to kill them then there is literally no hope for a reasonable infrastructure package,” claimed Zac Petkanas, another Clinton campaign alumni, referring to GOP opposition to a commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“The GOP is running the same playbook as 2009 to prevent progress,” said Rep. Adam Schiff of California. “Then ACA: Block at all costs. Now infrastructure: Block at all costs. And Mitch McConnell hasn’t given up his dream of a one-term president.”
But on Thursday, a group of Republicans unveiled an infrastructure counteroffer that they framed as the epitome of bipartisanship: Spending $928 billion without any tax hikes on the wealthy — a total that still falls about $800 billion short of the last White House offer.
“I think that shows there’s a real hunger for bipartisanship in the United States Senate,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, who McConnell has delegated to lead infrastructure talks for Republicans.
While the GOP plan devotes half of its plan to roads and bridges, it removes White House priorities like money for caring facilities, electric vehicles and accompanying charging stations.
“What we’d like to see done is a bipartisan agreement on traditional infrastructure, and much of it could be paid for by this additional money that’s already been sent down to states and localities, many of which are in great shape financially and just received an incredible bonus of borrowed money from us,” McConnell said Thursday on CNBC.
But McConnell also made clear that Thursday’s offer of $928 billion was not necessarily the final one put forth by Republicans — “We’re open to spending some more,” he said — and indicated he wanted to keep talking with the White House.
The Biden administration had initially offered Memorial Day as a malleable deadline to determine whether Republicans would get on board with an infrastructure bill. The ball is now in their court to decide whether it’s worth trying to squeeze some more money out of the GOP overture.
“We’re going to keep talking and I understand the president’s willing to keep talking,” McConnell said. “We’d like to get an outcome on a significant infrastructure package.”
But among liberals, patience is wearing thin and they’re pressuring Biden to move on, or lose the moment to transform the economy.
Moments after Republicans released their latest plan, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts took to MSNBC to pan it.
“I don’t really think this is a serious counteroffer,” Warren said, criticizing the lack of a clear vehicle to pay for it and the omission of funds for green infrastructure commitments and child care.
Warren joined six other progressive Democrats in a letter to Schumer this week, urging him to go even bigger than the White House wants on a “single ambitious package, combining physical and social investments hand in hand.”
“While bipartisan support is welcome, the pursuit of Republican votes cannot come at the expense of limiting the scope of popular investments,” the letter reads.
The liberal spending wish isn’t likely a tenable one, given the state of negotiations and the White House’s willingness to reduce its initial $2.3 trillion proposal to $1.7 trillion. But it demonstrates the squeeze Biden now confronts: accepting a smaller deal that commits to bipartisanship with McConnell or reaching for a go-it-alone package that would further alienate Republicans but alter the way the country’s economy is structured for the future.
McConnell argued that this Congress has already shown its inclination towards bipartisanship, on combating anti-Asian American hate crimes and appropriating $35 billion for new drinking and wastewater projects.
“We do bipartisan work on important things all the time. That’s a Democratic talking point that somehow we never do anything together. We do it frequently, almost on a weekly basis,” he said.
The president will have a fight on his hands whichever path he chooses.
The Sunrise Movement, a liberal climate advocacy group, emailed its members to petition Biden and Democrats to pass an infrastructure package with environment provisions, “rather than trying to win over Mitch McConnell’s white supremacist, corporate-funded, climate denying friends.”
This story was originally published May 27, 2021 at 11:33 AM with the headline "Amid signs of bipartisanship on infrastructure, McConnell has liberals in fits."
