Seventeen Senate Republicans Vote Yes to Move Infrastructure Bill Forward
The Senate will encounter a few bumps during the debate and eventual final vote of the package.
The Senate voted yes to move forward with the infrastructure bill, including 17 Republicans.
Remember, this is just the vote to start the debate on the bill.
Procedure Vote
17 Senate Republicans voted Yes to move forward on the bipartisan infrastructure bill:
Blunt
Burr
Capito
Cassidy
Collins
Cramer
Crapo
Graham
Grassley
Hoeven
McConnell
Murkowski
Portman
Risch
Romney
Tillis
Young— Craig Caplan (@CraigCaplan) July 28, 2021
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer needs all 50 Democrats and at least 10 Republicans for the bill to pass:
The vote opens the process to debate and amend the proposal, which would put $550 billion into transportation, broadband and utilities. While senators who backed the procedural motion could oppose a final package, Wednesday’s vote bodes well for its chances of passage.
The deal came together earlier in the day after Democratic and Republican negotiators resolved disputes over transit and broadband funding, among other issues. The plan was trimmed from the $579 billion in new spending senators and the White House agreed to last month — a sum many Democrats considered paltry.
It includes the following:
- $110 billion for roads
- $55 billion for clean drinking water
- $7.5 billion for electric vehicle infrastructure
- $5 billion for zero or low-emission buses
- $1 billion to demolish or reconstruct infrastructure that divided communities
Then we have the $3.5 trillion plan, which has nothing to do with infrastructure:
A second, separate $3.5 trillion plan to invest in child care, paid leave, education and measures to curb climate change could pose more problems. Every Democrat in the Senate will need to support the package to pass it without Republican votes.
Some Democrats, such as Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, have signaled they want a smaller final budget reconciliation bill. Sinema was the lead Democratic negotiator on the bipartisan bill.
Attempts to appease centrists could alienate liberals who worry the bipartisan infrastructure bill fails to do enough to address climate change or strengthen the social safety net.
The government cannot make anything easy:
Schumer aims to pass both the bipartisan bill and the budget resolution that sets up the reconciliation process before the Senate leaves for its recess next month. The Senate will have to rush to pass both measures on Schumer’s timeline in an institution not known for speed.
Pelosi has insisted she will not bring the infrastructure bill or budget measure to the House floor until the Senate passes both of them.
Thank you, Speaker Pelosi. Even though the bills have nothing to do with each other they have to go together. She is trying to appease the far-left radicals in the House, who demanded the non-infrastructure items go with the infrastructure bill.
Future Vote
Schumer needs all 50 Democrats and 10 Republicans to pass bills in the chamber.
He will not have Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ). She voted to move forward with the debate, but has said she will not vote for the $3.5 trillion bill:
Sinema, D-Ariz., told The Arizona Republic on Wednesday she had reviewed the Senate Budget Committee’s spending framework and has told Senate leadership and Biden that she supports many of its goals, including job growth and American competitiveness.
“I have also made clear that while I will support beginning this process, I do not support a bill that costs $3.5 trillion — and in the coming months, I will work in good faith to develop this legislation with my colleagues and the administration to strengthen Arizona’s economy and help Arizona’s everyday families get ahead,” Sinema said in a written statement.
OK here’s how I understand @SenatorSinema position on the budget now:
She will vote to begin the process on a $3.5T budget. But she will not support an eventual reconciliation package at $3.5T.
$3.5T is a compromise for the left. @BernieSanders, @RepJayapal
wanted $6-10T— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) July 28, 2021
The Squad has already attacked Sinema because she won’t support their far-left big government spending.
Good luck tanking your own party’s investment on childcare, climate action, and infrastructure while presuming you’ll survive a 3 vote House margin – especially after choosing to exclude members of color from negotiations and calling that a “bipartisan accomplishment.” 👍🏽👍🏽 https://t.co/0VF8Z73vAa
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 28, 2021
Sinema seems not to care that her own state is flooding, the west is burning, and infrastructure around the country is crumbling. Sinema is more interested in gaining GOP friends and blocking much needed resources, than fighting for her residents' future. https://t.co/TfSc0uoY1j pic.twitter.com/nTFC2lizfK
— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) July 28, 2021
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Comments
When they cast their vote they made a noise — ‘Oink’.
All of the usual suspect pieces of RINO shit, including McConnell.
And they’re going to act shocked when the Democrats shove reconciliation down their throats and whine about how they negotiated ‘in good faith’.
But guys. It’s SUPER IMPORTANT that we put Bitch McConnell back in charge in the Senate so he can totally stop the Democrats from doing crap like this.
These people make me sick.
They probably have that rat McConnell extorted six ways from Sunday:
https://www.gothambuzz.nyc/how-corrupt-are-mitch-mcconnell-his-wife-elaine-chao–cms-1565
Lots of parliamentary steps until final passage. Other factors at work include the debt ceiling waiver which expires at the end of the month.
From this point it appears that McConnell is going to use passage of the ‘bipartisan’ 1/2 billion traditional infrastructure package to offer political cover to Sinema and perhaps Manchin or other d/progressive Sen from red or purple States to vote against the larger 3.5 billion human infrastructure package.
Basically one the smaller real infrastructure bill is passed the super lefties in the HoR can kick and scream but may not be strong enough to push the vote to passage.
Then Pelosi follows through on her threat to to stop the smaller bill in the HoR unless both are passed in the Senate. That sets a partially institutional fight between HoR and Senate which offers another opportunity for reluctant d/progressive Sen to say no to the larger package.
This analysis excludes the arm twisting over ending or modifying the legislative filibuster. IMO ultimately the d/progressive will not do it because that’s their only hope of slowing down r in 2025 with a r sweep in HoR, Sen and Presidency. Instead they can keep it and use it then while milking it for fundraising.
Finally the parliamentarian will be making some rulings as to the content of the final package as to whether it meets the Senate rules about use of reconciliation.
So lots of maneuvers between now and then but as of now that is what I see.
Things may come to pass as you described.
The size of the bill that the GOP rubber-stamped leaves me cold – does anyone seriously believe the money will NOT be wasted on frivolous junk? – but for decades BOTH parties have spent like drunken sailors in a whorehouse. This kind of spending will eventually break us, but I long ago gave up the illusion that the GOP cares about budget deficits. And frankly, in the past nine months the GOP has done FAR worse than today’s actions (ratifying the most questionable election in American history, the double impeachment of Trump, the rubber-stamping of whatever lunatic the Biden* regime nominates, the endless yammering about the Insurrection That Wasn’t Actually An Insurrection, the dead silence about BLM/Antifa terrorism….the list goes on).
The debt is a sadly underreported topic. The debt to GDP ratio is nearing 130%. That’s well above the level where some Southern European Nations came unglued.
Yes we have the world reserve currency and that allows more latitude but there is a limit. Spending another $4 trillion we don’t have isn’t going to help us rein in the problem.
If interest rates actually rise and borrowing costs increase, they will at some point, then the interest payments on the debt burden crowd out other spending.
It’s all just Monopoly money at this point.
John,
Very true. Most people don’t understand the difference between ‘cash’ and ‘money’.
Cash is physical currency in any form; gold, fiat currency, tree bark, whatever society accepts as a medium. Money is just data on an accounting system. Digital or old fashioned ledger. It doesn’t exist outside the ledger.
Fractional reserve banking systems can work when hard limits are imposed and rigorously adhered to. The Federal government doesn’t comply with the accounting system the rest of adhere to.
IMO the best thing would be to stop the budget fiction and put everything on budget. Then apply basic budgetary limits that well run States use.
Limit spending to the average of the last five years non emergency spending (-) 1%. Hold it constant for five years. Sort of a variation on the ‘Penny Plan’.
No emergency spending. Natural disasters occur every year. Put it on budget as the average of the past decade. Remove the perverse incentives for spending frantically in the 4th quarter. No use it or lose it. Perhaps cut funding by the amount spent in 4th qtr by the % above spending average for the 3 prior qtr.
End the use of force authorization farce. If Congress wants to finance wars let them declare a war and develop an actual line item amount in the regular DoD budget.
All this doesn’t fix everything. It does create transparency and establish limits. My two cents on the federal budget for what it’s worth.
You have just dissed drunken sailors and whorehouses in one sentence. We demand an apology.😁
They need to be blind drunk to find a suitable woman.
Red Team, Blue Team. Same game.
Woo-hoo trillions more debt to fuel more inflation… way to go morons
We need to make very sure we elect more Republicans to the senate so we can stop this sort of thing.
Until we purge the GOP of the hacks infesting it, forget it. First, dump Rona Romney, or whatever that bozo’s name is.
And Kevin McCarthy, the wanna-be speaker: he’s Boehner-lite.
We have to fight Pelosi with another Pelosi. McCarthy ain’t it.
We need to elect Conservatives.
1) We know that none of the money for “infrastructure” will be used for infrastructure. Every dollar has a pocket it is designated to go into.
2) We know that the Republicans will not fight any of this corruption, because a) they hate us as as much as the Left does and b) they want their share.
3) We also know that this will be added to a deficit that will NEVER be repaid. The time left before organic waste impacts rotating airfoil is too short.
4) We will be the recipients of calls for donations to fight back against the Democrats. It may be important to remember that the Republicans collected tens of millions of dollars to fight the stolen election, and has not used any of it to fight the stolen election. The fight has to go on, but it is also necessary to know what side each of the combatants is really on.
Subotai Bahadur
Ditto.
“Stimulus Plan” Redux
Traitors all
Way off topic, but very sweet after a rotten day: Antifa terrorist gets beat up by a Jew.
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/464508/
Kav Maga.
The Jews put the MAGA in combat:
https://wayofmartialarts.com/top-15-deadliest-martial-arts-in-the-world-ranked/
Insane that anyone would vote for a bill that hasn’t even been written yet. Crazy that their “rules” even allow for that.
Insane that anyone would support $3.5 Trillion in new spending when we are experiencing historically high inflation and government “stimulus” spending is already in excess of 15% of GDP.
Then there’s the debt/deficit issue.
All to pile on a HUGE amount of spending on top of what the Dept Transportation and Highway Administration is ALREADY funded. They act like there’s never any $$ for “infrastructure” without a separate bill, but ignore that there is already a huge amount of $$ in every year’s budget to fund this.
And, obviously, virtually all the spending in this bill is reportedly unrelated to anything anyone has ever put under the heading of “infrastructure”.
This bill is a blank check for the D’s to pass, and fund, their ideological agenda. None of which is “infrastructure” in any sense of that term.
They can’t and haven’t voted for a bill that hasn’t been written yet. This was a vote to hold a debate. That’s all. No bill has to be written in order to start debating.
“Sinema seems not to care that her own state is flooding, the west is burning, and infrastructure around the country is crumbling. Sinema is more interested in gaining GOP friends and blocking much needed resources, than fighting for her residents’ future.”
Hey, Rashida, Sinema cares about exactly the same thing you do: getting re-elected. While you hail from a comfortably communist district of Michigan, Sinema hails from Arizona, where the desert weather isn’t the only thing that keeps her sweating.
Based on her history as a radical activist, I had expected Sinema to be the AOC of the Senate.
Shockingly, she seems to be the closest to sanity of any of the D’s there.
I don’t think she cares much about what Schumer wants, either. D’s usually have infinitely more discipline than the R’s. Not many exceptions.
We need to begin the process of reconciling the budget deficit. I suggest we begin by taking the salaries and perks of those 67 Senators who voted for these projects and applying that as a down payment. Furthermore, they should surrender their “retirement” pay to the national treasury for life as well. They have now opened the flood gates for the idiotic House spending marathon that will put a ridiculous debt not only on our children and grandchildren but on their grandchildren and great-grandchildren OR allow China to take over vast parts of this country in exchange for the debt accrued by THIS CONGRESS AND ADMINISTRATION foolishly bankrupting the government. May those 67 not have a minutes worth of sleep!
By the way, for the thought that Manchin and Synema need cover, WHY? They voted for this bill too!
They need cover for not voting for the $3.5T reconciliation bill. This $0.5T bill gives them cover for that.
Ditto.
The problem is that the GOP has a long history of elaborate posturing culminating in effective surrender. Surrender lubricated by getting some of the waste, abuse and graft for their own constituency and, not incidentally, themselves personally.
And BOTH North Dakota senators and BOTH North Carolina senators and BOTH Idaho senators voted for this! And Mike Rounds from South Dakota would have voted for it too had he voted. There are RED STATE SENATORS where many Republican voters are fleeing blue states to relocate to. This is complete disgrace for the GOP.
People in those states like federal spending on infrastructure, so their senators voting against an actual infrastructure bill would be a very bad look. They will certainly vote against the BS “infrastructure” bill when Schumer eventually introduces it. But this vote was not about that.
That many Rhinos got it that far, it will get passed
More and more people are waking up to the fact that government “for the people” doesn’t exist anymore. Government serves government and special interests. We play a very small part in the process.
Does it occur to anyone here that this move by the assenting Republicans could be a savvy political move? If polling suggests that Americans like the idea of some infrastructure spending (on actual infrastructure), by voting “yes” these Republicans permit other Republicans to campaign without the entire Republican party being accused of stopping everything in its tracks.
Further, this vote was just procedural. Everyone knows that. Kyrsten Sinema just said she wouldn’t vote for the $4.5 billion spending plan to be passed through reconciliation. That means that Democrats probably won’t vote for this bill, thereby taking the defeat themselves. Do you think you’re savvier than McConnell in all things?
Finally, voting other than how you would vote or voting in a way that Donald Trump would not approve, does not make one a RINO (not Rhino).
Considering the history of Republicans, I have zero faith that they will be playing some sort of “long game”.
That kind of thinking is for losers.
You mean the history of blocking 100% of things Obama wanted after retaking the house in 2010 and giving Donald Trump 100% of legislation he asked for (all he asked for was tax cuts and jail break and he got both)?
Their record of obstructing the Democrat agenda is a good one.
@Danny
Exactly, which so why its pretty remarkable that Dems play ball with negotiating with the Republicans at all. The obstructionist agenda was purely political it had very little to do with good governance.
“Does it occur to anyone here that this move by the assenting Republicans could be a savvy political move?”
No.
Stuytown,
I laid out the reasoning for that based on my opinion. I don’t think it’s necessarily smart politically per say but it might be the best case in the lemonade out lemons situation we find ourselves in in the Senate.
The folks who voted in the general election in GA but stayed home for the runoff elections because they believed Lin Wood or some other invented reason to allow two d/progressive to be be elected is freaking killing us.
Better a rino than a d/progressive. Better a solid small govt conservative than a rino. Unfortunately we don’t always get the choices we prefer.
For goodness sake please don’t anyone just stay home again because the r candidate doesn’t pass some purity test. The d/progressive alternative you are helping elect will be worse.
Discussing the Senate process in terms of Dem vs Rep just confirms how little we have learned. Even if Republicans held all 100 Senate seats, they would manage to lose to the Dems. This is just total Uniparty corruption masked by “process” to give us idiots something to fight about. The deal is done! It’s time to clean house!
This deal will kill the economy by drowning it with cash. We are past the point when printing money can be called stimulus. It’s the same exact thing as flooding a country with counterfeit money and no one has a problem understanding why THAT is illegal!
Republicans have learned nothing from either Pelosi, e.g. how to line up and play the suckers, or Trump, e.g. how to fight back and not be played for a sucker. Crime, defunded police, immigration, the wall, COVID, taxes, inflation, energy, the environment, schools, voting and elections, Israel, China, Russia….what a mess.
Sure they have, they are part of the Uniparty and this is what they want. Rest is all circus and mirrors
The Republicans shouldn’t be debating ANY infrastructure bill at all. They should be calling for killing any more of these boondoggles. What our economy needs is a major slashing of the size of government bureaucracy and the graft that keeps it afloat. It’s a SPENDING problem.
If your Senator has been in office for more than 2 terms you might consider replacing them. The founders thought we could use our vote to limit time in office but when asked ever one of you says the rest suck by my elected officials is bringing home the bacon. This is that bacon.
Democrats care about infrastructure. Really?
The “West” is burning, all right, because the Democrats in California don’t do infrastructure. That includes both forest clearing and burying electrical lines. So, they use the fires to shift the cost of illegal immigrants to the rest of the country.
Who else is paying for the fires? Local customers can look at their utility bills for part of the answer to that one.
Meanwhile, the East Coast is wetter than the West, but it gets a whole lot more lightning strikes, and in the past has had fires the size of Pennsylvania. Nevertheless, the East Coast no longer has such huge blazes. Why?
East Coast forests are mostly private property, and they are manicured. When trees reach the fuel stage, somebody is there to detect it, and harvest it for use as, for example, furniture.
Local farmers, ranchers, and householders in California are being strangled for water by the pricing. A large fraction of the water is being diverted to keep its rivers running to preserve a bait fish. This is unscientific and anti-ecological and unnatural, because these rivers have historically had periods where they dry up and the bait fish naturally die off. If the issue were the fish, the species could be preserved in aquariums and re-seeded in wetter years. Instead, the almond and avocado and orange groves have been ruined.
What else is happening?
Irrigation has the potential to help alleviate the drought. Water to trees and gardens could modify the weather and also reduce the amount of dried, dead fuel burdening the farmland. Allowing everything to dry to a crisp every year promotes both fires and fire storms.
And the Democrats want the Feds to pay for their dabbling in bad science and bad policy.
Look at the list of repubs
Retiring after 2022 elections, Blunt, Burr and Portman
Facing a strong primary race, Murkowski
This group is up for election in 2022, Crapo, Grassley, Hoeven and Young
Of course, &!#*%!? Cassidy voted for it. I’m so supporting the campaign against him in 5 years.
It is an interesting act of faith, that you believe that there will be meaningful elections in 5 years. I hope you are right, but I am not betting on it.
Subotai Bahadur
If Mitch McConnell was senate majority leader right now we wouldn’t be getting a defeat because it would be up to him what reaches the senate floor.
Which is why you don’t resort to conspiracy theories that keep people from voting Republican.
The only thing that the RINO GOP Senators predictably excel at — getting on bended knee to do the vile Dhimmi-crats’ bidding, and, to advance their destructive and corrosive agenda. And, then, the Dhimmi-crat apparatchiks engage in a predictable song and dance about how their bill has “bi-partisan” support.
With antics like this the Republicans are driving me straight into the Libertarian Party.