Republican voters across the country surely did not elect 50 U.S. Senators to support the socialist agenda of President Joe Biden. In fact, these Senators were elected to serve as a bulwark against the far-left legislation pushed by our cognitively challenged President and the congressional leadership of the Democratic Party. Unfortunately, these wishes are being ignored by Senate Republicans who are more interested in doing “deals,” rewarding lobbyists and growing the size of the gargantuan federal government.
Once again, the conservative base of the Republican Party has been betrayed by their so-called leaders in the United States Congress. In the latest monstrosity, a $1.2 trillion “infrastructure” bill, a horrific piece of legislation, was advanced this weekend by eighteen Republican U.S. Senators. This will give the Democrats and President Joe Biden another victory, while the grassroots of the Republican Party will suffer another stinging defeat.
The GOP Senators supporting the legislation included the entire RINO caucus, featuring Republican Party embarrassments such as Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Susan Collins of Maine, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Rob Portman of Ohio, Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina. For good measure, worthless U.S. Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, added his support to the “bi-partisan” legislation.
Bi-partisan cooperation always ends up exclusively helping the Democratic Party, as Republicans get nothing in return. Such legislation adds to the federal debt, expands government, and gives conservatives no victories to savor.
The goal of the GOP in the U.S. Congress should be victory over their Democratic Party opponents. The Republicans should be working non-stop to defeat every piece of socialist legislation that Democrats advocate until the midterm elections in 2022 hopefully give the party more reinforcements and control of Congress. However, if the GOP keeps giving the Democrats victories like the “infrastructure” bill there will be little, if anything, left to save after the midterm elections.
The “infrastructure” bill is 2,702 pages long and has certainly not been read in its entirety by any member of the United States Senate. It is more than double the size of the Bible, but without any of the “Good News.”
It is nothing but more big government expansion, reckless spending, and payoffs to influential special interest groups. President Donald Trump called the bill “a gift to the Democratic Party.” Of course, he is right, and Republicans can thank their gutless Senate Minority Leader and the RINO’s in their caucus for this latest disaster.
The bill includes very little for actual infrastructure. According to the Republican Study Committee, only about 10% of the bill is actually being allocated for traditional infrastructure projects. The rest of the bill includes funding of digital equity grants, zero-emission vehicles, and green energy projects. It also formalizes gender identity as a protected class, provides alcohol monitoring of drivers, and will track mileage so new taxes can be added.
Not surprisingly, the bill is just another liberal grab bag of spending priorities. While no conservative goals are actually achieved in the bill, the word “equity” is used at least 64 times. According to far-left Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, the bill also addresses “racism physically built into some of our highways.” It is not clear how highways are racist, but billions of dollars will be spent to fix it anyway.
The bill includes nothing for the biggest crisis in America, the invasion of illegal aliens at our southern border. While zero dollars are earmarked for the border wall, at least $2.5 billion is allocated for additional “border processing stations.” These facilities will not be used to stop the invasion of illegal aliens but will be used to help poor Central American “migrants” receive the resources and direction they need for access into the United States.
Another troubling feature is that the bill, according to the Congressional Budget Office, will add $256 billion to the national debt. The University of Pennsylvania’s Penn-Wharton Budget Model has calculated an even greater addition to the national debt of $351 billion with no “significant” economic gain from the legislation.
Republicans used to be concerned about the national debt and limiting the size of the federal government, but such values are practically non-existent in the U.S. Congress today. Along with the fiscal problems caused by more debt, there are inflationary pressures that will be created. This is a significant problem because inflationary pressures are already skyrocketing in our country. In fact, prices on everything from groceries to gasoline have been increasing at the highest levels in over a decade.
These inflationary pressures act as an additional tax on hard-working Americans, who are still suffering from the COVID pandemic, the effects of the lockdown, and the fact that millions of jobs have still not returned to the American economy since the start of the crisis in March of 2020.
For all of these reasons and more, Senate Republicans should not be working with Democrats and the President on a budget-busting, Green New Deal piece of misnamed “infrastructure” legislation. When Donald Trump was President, Democrats refused to work with him on an infrastructure bill. In fact, Democrats spent his entire four-year term trying to impeach, convict and politically destroy him.
Republicans should display the same attitude toward the radical socialist Joe Biden and the Democratic Party leadership in Congress. There should be no cooperation, no bi-partisanship, only political opposition to a dangerous, far-left agenda.
Another reason this bill should be opposed is that it is only part one of a two-part disastrous legislative combination that Democrats are readying for passage this year. The companion legislation is even larger, $3.5 trillion, and more offensive for it includes “climate change action,” an expansion of government-funded health care programs, and other items on the Democratic Party’s legislative wish list.
Unless Republicans exhibit some political courage and work to stop this agenda, the nightmare for our country will only get worse in the days, weeks, and months ahead.
Jeff Crouere
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