Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) defended his support of the so-called bipartisan infrastructure bill by leaving out key context surrounding the “woke agenda” in the mammoth $1.2 trillion, 2,702-page legislation.
“I’ve heard a lot of misinformation about the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Let’s clear some of it up. First, it is NOT tied to the $3.5 trillion spending bill Democrats want to pass later this year,” Cramer wrote, claiming that there is no link between the $1.2 trillion and the even larger $3.5 trillion Democrat spending bill.
However, despite Cramer’s claim, Reuters describes this as a “glide path” towards passing the $3.5 trillion legislation by granting Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Krysten Sinema (D-AZ) a victory on their bipartisan infrastucture legislation, therefore putting pressure on them to pass the reconciliation bill.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has continually said she would not consider the bipartisan bill unless the Senate also advances the $3.5 trillion bill. Biden has made similar claims.
Cramer tried to fight back against claims that the bill is not paid for by saying that “certain pay-fors like repurposing unused COVID relief funds or the increased revenue from economic gain” cannot be calculated into the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) score of the bill.
The CBO found that the bill would add $256 billion to the deficit.
Cramer makes lofty claims about increased revenue from economic gain, considering the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn-Wharton Budget Model says that the bipartisan infrastructure bill would create no “significant” economic gain.
The Penn-Wharton Budget Model also found the bill would result in $351 in deficits.
“Investing in infrastructure puts people to work, gives taxpayers a long-term asset, and helps with the supply-side of the economy by getting more goods to market,” Cramer said.
Cramer’s claim ignores that the additional spending created by the infrastructure bill would have to be financed by the issuance of more debt. The issuance of more debt to pay for the infrastructure could also lead to more inflation. This comes as many Republicans have railed against the soaring inflation under President Joe Biden. Spending more as Americans continue to feel the pain of more inflation would only punish Americans’ bottom line.
“Roads, bridges, rail, transit, broadband, airports, resiliency, and permitting reform are bipartisan priorities,” Cramer added.
Cramer’s dodged any concerns about the “liberal, woke, agenda” items in the infrastructure bill, which includes:
- Defines “gender identity” as a protected class.
- Doles out “digital equity” grants partly based on racial or ethnic minority status.
- State-mandated carbon reduction program
- Contains funding for “zero-emission vehicles”
- Addresses “over-the-road bus tolling equity”
- Contains the word “equity” 64 times
- Provides roughly $2.5 billion to help the U.S. government expand the border processing stations used by migrants from poor Central American nations and other regions around the world.
Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), the Republican Study Committee chairman, also noted the many “woke” issues in the bill:
Senate Republicans, such as Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), have called out the infrastructure bill for containing many “woke issues.”
“Now gender identity is infrastructure. Can’t wait to see what else is in this bill,” Hawley wrote.
Notably, the legislation does not contain any sizable conservative victories.
The legislation calls for a study to review the potential impact of revoking the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, even though it does not restore the job-creating project. The bill also has billions of dollars for border crossings and zero dollars for a border wall.
George Carlin, the famous comedian, once noted that lauding legislation as “bipartisan” usually means that lawmakers are lying to their constituents,
“The word bipartisan usually means some larger-than-usual deception is being carried out,” Carlin said.
Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.