Many Republicans are rallying around Trump's false claim that infrastructure deal is 'fake'
By Ben Werschkul
As the House of Representatives prepares to vote Thursday on the bipartisan infrastructure deal, many House Republicans who have lined up against it argue that the bill is not about infrastructure at all.
“I've got serious reservations about the fact that, depending on whose numbers you believe, only 10% to 20% of that $1.1 trillion truly goes to infrastructure,” Rep. Buddy Carter (R., Ga.) told Yahoo Finance last week.
The language echoes an argument from former President Donald Trump. It's a “fake infrastructure deal” composed of “11% infrastructure and even that's not real infrastructure,” Trump said in an interview with Fox Business on Aug. 31.
But by any measure, the numbers from Trump and Carter, a Trump ally who voted to overturn the 2016 election even after a pro-Trump mob attacked the Capitol, don’t add up.
Nevertheless, it has been repeated often, especially by Trump-aligned House Republicans. Indiana Rep. Jim Banks, chairman of the Republican Study Committee, said Friday that “House Republicans remain unified in opposition to this fake infrastructure bill.” Banks had been selected by House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) to be the top Republican on the committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, but was rejected by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) for his actions on that day, including his vote to overturn the election after the violence.
What's in the infrastructure bill
The 2,702-page infrastructure bill contains about $550 billion in new spending. It was summarized by the White House and backed up by multiple independent analyses and is largely clear as to its major provisions.
About 20% of the new money goes to fund roads, bridges, and other surface transportation programs ($110 billion)
Just under 20% is allocated for public transit and passenger and freight rail ($105 billion)
Just under 8% is for seaports and airports ($42 billion)
About 12% is for improving broadband access ($65 billion)
Another 10% goes to improve the water system and replace lead pipes ($55 billion)
28% goes toward an array of provisions related to energy, the environment, and climate change, from upgrading the electric grid to a new fleet of electric vehicle charging stations to cleaning up Superfund sites.
The legislation agreed to in the Senate authorizes $550 billion in new spending. Some lawmakers like to refer to the bill as a $1.1 trillion or $1.2 trillion package because it also includes funding for highways and other projects that are allotted every year.
In the end, 19 Republican senators voted in favor of the package, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), along with all 50 Democrats.
In his conversation with Yahoo Finance, Carter listed the areas where “I think all of us would agree" are infrastructure: roads, bridges, airports, seaports, broadband, high-speed internet.
Those provisions alone account for almost 60% of the new spending in the bill.
Repeated requests to Rep. Carter asking how he arrived at his calculation yielded no answer beyond “Mr. Carter is sad that only a small portion of the bill is devoted to traditional types of infrastructure.”
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Posted By: Dea. Ron Gray Sr.
Monday, September 27th 2021 at 8:33PM
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