On June 24, the White House hosted a press conference to announce a bipartisan infrastructure agreement. It was going be an easy win by the left with more money and power as well as greater control over Washington.Instead, President Joe Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) decided that this was not good enough and placed the deal on life support.Separately, the leading Democrats demanded that any bipartisan bill for infrastructure be accompanied with a partisan spending package. This maneuver is known as reconciliation.Reconciliation is a socialist wishlist: $6 trillion to spend on the largest expansion of welfare state in decades, radical Green New Deal programs and massive amnesty for illegal immigrant, federal micromanagement, and many more.It would also be accompanied by massive tax increases that would halt the economic recovery.Biden stated that he would not sign an infrastructure bill unless the reconciliation bill was on his table. After Biden's statements were made public, the administration realized that they had damaged the bipartisan plan.But what Biden said last Wednesday was not a slip-of-the-label, but a continuation and extension of what prominent congressional Democrats had been saying for years.It is important to understand how and why we came to this point.The Biden administration presented an infrastructure plan in March that was more concerned with building big government than improving roads. The plan was rejected by Congress Republicans, and Democrats threatened reconciliation to pass it.Both parties wanted to avoid a partisan bill on infrastructure. After several failed meetings between Biden, Republicans, a bipartisan group started a series closed-door meetings to work out an infrastructure deal.The bipartisan plan was not encouraging to conservatives. The bipartisan plan includes $1.2 trillion in spending. $559 billion is more than the status quo.Transportation spending is tilting left with more money going to transit and Amtrak than highways. Also, billions are available for electric vehicles, resilience, environmental cleanups, and huge amounts of infrastructure that the private sector is responsible, such as broadband and the power grid.The bipartisan boondoggle is just as bad because it relies on a number of questionable and inappropriate pay-fors in order to cover the costs. These include:To put a greater squeeze on families, businesses and employees, we spent $40 billion.Use COVID-19 relief money that has not been used. This amounts to fake savings, since most of the money will not be used at this time.The plan is partially funded by economic growth. This overlooks the fact that infrastructure spending did not deliver economic results under Obama's administration.Non-infrastructure policies such as broadband spectrum auctions or addressing unemployment insurance fraud should be consumed. They are not meant to be used for reducing our insane national debt.This plan will add hundreds of millions to interest and debt payments, increasing America's unfair burden on children.Even though the bipartisan agreement spends enormous amounts on left-wing priorities, and uses gimmicks in order to avoid politically damaging tax increases, it is not enough for the left. They now demand the monstrous reconciliation program.To pressure Republicans to support a bipartisan left-leaning deal, Democrats threatened to pass a hard-left reconciliation bill at the beginning of the infrastructure debate.If negotiations were conducted in good faith, Republicans would agree to the deal and lift the Democrats' threat of a huge reconciliation bill. If Democrats could simply turn around and get all they want through reconciliation, then what's the point in negotiating?This is exactly why Republicans from the centrists that negotiated the bipartisan plan to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) are so angry at the unattainable demand. Even moderate Democrats balk at this radical move.While there is great potential to get federal infrastructure policy right, legislators should not rush. You have enough time to create a bill that maximizes taxpayer dollars and spends on national priorities while reducing federal red tape.It doesn't matter where the infrastructure talks go from there, it is vital that Republicans secure assurances from leading Democrats about bipartisan compromises that aren't contingent on a radical leftwing spending package.This extreme, unfaithful approach could lead to Congress becoming more dysfunctional than ever before, which would be bad for America's future.Do you have a comment about this article? Send us an email at [email protected] with your comments. We may publish them in our We Hear You section. Include the URL of the article or the headline, along with your name and the town/state.
