Sen. John Kennedy has criticized the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill as “stupid stuff”. This remark of him came upon on Monday night after the final senate vote on the passage.
Kennedy said that he was likely to give his vote for “yes” on this package until he received a copy. The copy includes 2700 pages.
Kennedy said, “I realized pretty quickly that if you look up ‘stupid stuff’ in the dictionary, there’s a picture of this bill.”
They told him that it was a real infrastructure bill. According to him, only 23% of the bill is real infrastructure. The rest of it is about the Green New Deal and welfare. They told them that the bill is having its payment for some purpose, which is not at all true. They will need to borrow up to$400 billion to pay for it. Also, it has been said that there is no tax increase. But there are. The state of Kennedy has to pay $ 1.3 billion in new taxes on their petrochemical industry.
“They told us … the Democrats were wary of this bill and that if we passed this bill, it would make it harder for them to pass their $5 trillion tax and spending binge reconciliation bill,” Kennedy added. “Well, if that’s true, how come every Democrat voted for this infrastructure bill? And finally, they told us that it’s not going to add to inflation, but it will.”
Besides the complaints, he and other Republican senators are on track to pass this bill on Tuesday morning. Then they sent it to the House, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi has vowed to hold on to it until Senate Democrats are passing a $3.5 budget with no GOP support. The Senate is about to begin debate on this measure as it dispenses with bipartisan bills.
After its initial start in the last month, this $1 trillion bill has cleared all the test votes with 6 votes. It is also setting the stage up for a very simple majority vote to ensure the final passage.
Kennedy is not at all sure how this bill has managed to get 60+ votes. He thinks that maybe the voters are daydreaming. At the heart of this bill, there is a proposal to spend $550 billion on bridges, roads, internet, water pipes, etc.
Republican members of the Bipartisan Senate negotiating team have argued the CBO projection of an extra $265 Billion to the federal deficit. They have also argued that the CBO projection has failed to take into account the revenue streams.
Credits: New York Post