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[Pages S2535-S2536]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Infrastructure
Mr. President, on infrastructure, yesterday Speaker Pelosi and I had
a productive meeting with President Trump at the White House on the
topic of infrastructure. We all agreed on the need to invest
substantial resources in infrastructure. We all agreed on the need to
modernize and rebuild our roads, bridges, highways, and also our
schools, our housing, and our power grids, and there was a specific
conversation about the need to invest in expanding broadband to
underserved communities.
We told the President we needed labor protections, we needed a green
bill, and we needed to see that minorities, women, and veterans got
their fair share when contracts were let out.
It was a good discussion, but there is more to be decided. So what we
agreed was that we would have another discussion in which the
administration will present proposals for how to pay for the bill.
Let's face it, the reason we haven't gotten far in infrastructure is
that the administration has come up with no way for pay-fors. We
Democrats put in a $1 trillion plan--not $2 trillion--but we paid for
all of it. We used tax breaks on the wealthy and the powerful who got
huge, huge benefits recently to pay for it. That may not be the way the
President wants to pay for it, but we want to know how he would because
last time he came up with a bill that had virtually no real pay-fors--
public-private partnerships, which even he discredits.
The bottom line is simple. We will get an infrastructure bill if the
President will come up with pay-fors, and then we can put ours
forward--we have
[[Page S2536]]
already--and see if we can come to an agreement.
Seven or eight people at the meeting all told the President that we
will not get a bill done unless he comes up with pay-fors. He agreed.
He said: I will. He said: I will take some heat from some of my fellow
Republicans, but I will do it. We will be waiting. We will be waiting.
At the White House, I made it explicitly clear that in an effort to
pay for infrastructure, the administration must not take the Tax Code
and make it any more regressive than it already is. I prefer to make it
more progressive. To tell the wealthy that they are getting a huge tax
break and then to tell the middle-class, working people that they are
paying for the bulk of this is totally unfair and unacceptable to this
Member.
The President said he would come up with pay-fors, but this morning I
was disappointed. I saw both the Acting Chief of Staff, Mr. Mulvaney,
and the Wall Street Journal editorial board mock the effort we are
trying to make to rebuild the Nation's infrastructure. Their criticism?
Too much spending, the deficit is too high, and we can't find revenue.
Funny that we didn't hear those same criticisms when the Republicans in
Congress were jamming through a partisan, unpaid-for $2 trillion tax
cut for the wealthiest of Americans. That doesn't have to be paid for,
but our roads and bridges do. We are willing to pay for both, although
I am not willing to pay for any big tax cuts on the wealthy that didn't
pass with a single Democratic vote. I hope, for the good of the country
and for the need of infrastructure--we know when we build
infrastructure, America grows, and jobs are created. So we hope Mr.
Mulvaney and the Wall Street Journal editorial board will rethink their
knee-jerk partisan reactions.
Let's face it. Mulvaney is different. He was with the President. He
supported the tax cuts. The Wall Street Journal editorial board
believes it is OK to increase the deficit to reduce tax cuts on the
wealthy but not OK when you are building infrastructure. Ninety-five
percent of all Americans don't agree with that. Let's hope Donald Trump
doesn't follow their ministrations.
The bottom line is, we hope to hear from the White House in several
weeks, one way or the other.
Mr. President, what are your pay-fors? We want to know, and the
American people want to know. Right now it is the biggest barrier to
preventing us from getting an infrastructure bill.