CrimsonPhantom
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RE: Biden* Infrastructure Plan to Spend $4 Trillion, Increase Taxes by $3 Trillion
Quote:House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that President Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure package was not only about traditional infrastructure because it addressed “human infrastructure” such as childcare, housing, and education.
Partial transcript as follows:
MARGARET BRENNAN, HOST CBS’s “FACE THE NATION”: Well, on the specifics of how the president wants to see the economy grow with this two and a quarter trillion dollar package, he’s asking, you have a Democratic majority. It’s a slim one here. You can only really afford to lose about two Democrats. What are you going to do? What concrete proposals can you offer to get Republicans on board with this jobs and infrastructure package?
PELOSI: Well, you’ve heard me say again and again, public sentiment is everything. Lincoln said that. The public understands that the worst and most expensive maintenance is no maintenance. And we have to maintain our roads, our bridges, our mass transit. We have to upgrade our water systems. We have to build out our- our broadband for distance learning and telemedicine and the rest of that. So we have a big responsibility. We have a big need to the tune of trillions of dollars, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. This is a very important piece of–
BRENNAN: Well, what you just is what you just laid out there does have Republican support. It’s the rest of the package that Republicans are largely objecting to. Can you trim this down to focus on just the portions–
PELOSI: No.
BRENNAN: –you outlined there, the roads, the bridges, the waterways?
PELOSI: Well, no, because infrastructure is- it’s about education, about getting children healthily in school with separation, sanitation, ventilation. It’s about investments in housing as well. Overwhelmingly, this bill is about infrastructure in the traditional sense of the word. We also think that infrastructure- there’s a need for workforce development in order to have the workforce fully participate in how we go forward and childcare so that women can be involved in that as well. So it’s physical infrastructure. It’s also human infrastructure that is involved. And the figure that they use is a ridiculous one to say that it’s just a small percentage of the bill. It is overwhelmingly what the legislation is about. And some newer versions of why- how we build the infrastructure in a way that takes building back better means we’re all going down the path together.
BRENNAN: Well, as we talked about there, you have a slim majority. So to keep the progressives in your party happy, they are pushing you to actually make it bigger, not to slim it down. They’re pushing you as well on paid family and medical leave. I know you continue to say you are committed to making those things permanent,–
PELOSI: Yeah.
BRENNAN: –but that’s not in these White House proposals.
PELOSI: Well no.
BRENNAN: When do you plan to put those things in a bill to make those permanent?
PELOSI: Well, the president has talked about additional legislation, our families bill, that would come next and have issues that relate to lowering the cost of prescription drugs by having a- a negotiation for lower prices about family and medical leave being made permanent. And of course, I want to make the child tax credit permanent as well.–
BRENNAN: When?
PELOSI: But those in a matter of conversation as we go forward, I have no doubt that we will have a great bill in the House. I hope that it will be bipartisan. I’ve been in Congress long enough to remember when bipartisanship was not unusual and that actually growing- building infrastructure has never been a partisan issue. They would only make it- they made it partisan under President Obama by shrinking the bill. Hopefully the need is so obvious now that Republicans will vote for it. We’ll see. The door is open. Our hand is extended. Let’s find out where we can find our common ground. We always have a responsibility to strive for bipartisanship.
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Quote:Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on Sunday said there’s “so much” for states that have been mining fossil fuels “to love” in President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan.
In an interview on ABC News’ “This Week,” Granholm said the president is willing to compromise with Republicans on the $2.3 trillion package.
“So much of this package will help not just West Virginia, but the states like West Virginia that have been historically mining fossil fuels, extracting fossil fuels,” she said. “Republicans and Democrats agree on the importance of not leaving communities behind where the market has moved in a different direction like in coal.”
“This will help to train people who are in that industry to move to these new technologies that are not a whole lot different from the skills that they may be using in mining coal,” she said, adding, “There's a lot in there that helps these states move to the future in addition to roads and bridges and in rural states, broadband, and transmission. So much in here to love.”
According to Granholm, Biden is “willing to negotiate what this looks like.”
“He knows that his current plan is going to be changed,” she said. “That's the nature of compromise. So whether it is in one big package or several packages, he wants to talk to Republicans.”
“The president wants to give it the time necessary to see if he can achieve that bipartisan support,” she added. “Hopefully there will be progress by Memorial Day. I know that he wants to get this done by summer. … not doing something is not an option.”
“We need to make these investments,” she declared. “We need to make the investments at the size of the need for America to win, and so that's what this is about.”
With Republicans signaling united opposition to Biden's proposal, Democrats need near-universal party support to pass infrastructure and jobs legislation.
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Quote:Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg declined Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” to rule out adding a path to citizenship for DREAMers to President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure package.
Anchor Jake Tapper said, “House progressives are calling you to include a path to citizenship for DREAMers in the legislation. Again, I understand this is a principle you think that is worth fighting for. Is that infrastructure?”
Buttigieg said, “That’s not in the plan that we have put forward. Of course, we need to support DREAMers. That’s important as a policy matter in this country. Now, we’re getting into the season where there is going to be a lot of push and pull on. You know how things move in different forms in terms of legislative packaging. That’s what this negotiating process will produce. But the important thing, as the president has repeatedly said, is we can’t do nothing. We can’t wait any longer, and when it comes to this infrastructure package, The American people are ready to go. We have been ready to go for years and years. I think this is the third administration to arrive with the American people clamoring for something to happen on infrastructure. I think this time we can get it done.”
Tapper pressed, “Are you ruling out including a path for citizenship for DREAMers in the infrastructure bill?”
Buttigieg said, “Again, that’s not in the plan that the president has put forward. I will say that we’re hearing a lot of ideas from across the aisle and within our caucus on you know what to do about the pay-fors, different shapes that the infrastructure package and the transportation infrastructure can take. I think you will find the president is ready to listen to these ideas that are going to come up, for example, in tomorrow’s meeting. But we can’t just sit here. We’ve got roads and bridges deteriorating by the day. America is not in the top 10 when it comes to transportation infrastructure — areas that I work on the most. We got to get something done.”
Tapper said, “So I’ll interpret that as your mind is opened as to what else might be in the package.”
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