Economy

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, this morning, the Labor Department announced that it had observed the largest uptick in prices since the depths of the great recession back in 2008, and core inflation has reached a nearly three-decade high.

The latest data reinforced what too many Americans have already been experiencing firsthand: The Biden administration's partisan spending bill has blunted our Nation's economic recovery with higher prices at the gas pump and the grocery store, a tougher time for small businesses trying to staff up, and unemployment policies that incentivize too many Americans to simply stay on the sidelines.

Republicans and outside economists warned that the worst of these conditions actually could have been avoided, but Democrats chose to go it alone. As recently as a few days ago, it appeared that President Biden was open to a new, more consultative approach to major legislation. He and the leading Republican on a committee of jurisdiction were engaged in what appeared to be good-faith, bipartisan negotiations on infrastructure spending, but then the President decided to walk away.

Now, at the White House's direction, Democrats in Congress are making preparations to muscle through a bloated spending bill on a unilateral, partisan basis, and it is becoming clear that the sort of united, bipartisan action Ranking Member Capito has made possible within the EPW Committee is getting harder and harder to replicate.

The bipartisanship that has defined infrastructure policy for years is becoming the exception to Democrats' new partisan rule. It might have something to do with the fact that our Democratic friends have taken to using ``infrastructure'' as a code for a growing wish list of unrelated liberal spending.

The Biden administration's first infrastructure plan made that much clear from its rollout back in March. Remember, this was a multitrillion-dollar bill that proposed to spend more on electric vehicles than on actual roads and bridges. It contained so many leftwing pet projects that the authors of the Green New Deal boasted about just how much of their manifesto's DNA had actually rubbed off.

Well, the administration's approach clearly influenced a number of Democrats right here in the Senate. Last month, on the same day that Chairman Carper and Ranking Member Capito were guiding a surface transportation bill to a unanimous vote, the Finance Committee was busy marking up a partisan plan to pick winners and losers in the market for reliable domestic energy.

Just this week, we watched their go-it-alone approach replicated by Democrats over in the House. The Transportation and Infrastructure Committee had a perfect opportunity to reach consensus on surface transportation. Our colleagues on the EPW Committee had left a clear roadmap on exactly how to cut a consensus deal, but instead, the House chairman forced his committee to mark up $547 billion littered--littered--with Green New Deal policies.

Compared to the last multiyear highway bill, it nearly doubles the share of resources for mass urban transit projects, while upping the road-and-bridge funding Middle America relies on by not nearly as much. In contrast to smart permit-streaming steps taken by our colleagues' Senate bill, it largely neglects to help the communities and builders who spent years wading through Federal redtape before they can even break ground.

The recent history of investment in roads, bridges, waterways, airports, and broadband tells us that smart, targeted solutions are capable of earning overwhelming support. But until Democrats get serious, the road ahead for consensus action on our Nation's infrastructure will only get steeper

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source