Senate Republicans Block Initial Debate on Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework as Negotiations Over Bill Continue

Much of our infrastructure is at a critical need for repairs/replacement stage; meanwhile GOP lawmakers are holding the debt ceiling hostage, which they never did with Trump. The Washington Post says, “Lifting the debt ceiling is necessary to pay bills racked up during the Trump years, including the nearly $5 trillion of new debt signed into law through tax cuts and spending increases even before covid-19 struck. Covid then added trillions more in red ink, primarily through bipartisan relief plans passed last year under Trump.” The GOP have become famous for tax-cuts which postpone debt or load it onto the next administration, but the people carry the load.

What’s the point? It’s like water running upstream. It won’t go anywhere since there will be a Republican stationed every inch to block all flows. Forget negotiation. There is none with Republicans. To believe there is is naive and foolish of Democrats. When will they learn that there is no, none, nada, bupkis trust with Republicans? A person holds a loaded gun with the safety off to your head are you stupid enough to believe you can “negotiate” with him not to kill you? Just look at their spoken diarrhea about vaccination. They prefer that people die rather than be vaccinated, because a Democratic President and his admin are crying.for the dead who could have lived if they had not believed the vile regurgitation of conspiracies from Republicans. Democrats who believe in negotiation, bipartisanship or anything close to it are as foolish as those who believe all the incoherent rantings of the Republican party membership. i’d like to believe that wishing upon a star will make my dreams come true, but I recognized reality from delusion a long time ago. Democrats need to quit believing that wishing upon Republicans for anything decent, moral and humane will become reality is delusional and a waste of time. Stomp on them as the cockroaches they are, do what needs to be done and quit pretending that Republicans have any interest in the well being of the country. “Better dead than vaccinated” should tattooed on every Republican’s forehead. For Republicans it is better for bridges to collapse and people die than approve any item of any infrastructure bill promoted by a Democratic admin. We wouldn’t negotiate with a dictator or a corrupt leader of a country. Why are we trying to do it with Republicans? Their MOP is crimes against humanity. We are the humanity they will destroy in a heart beat to get their immoral beliefs enacted. They use us as currency to advocate for their wealthy clientele. While we shove them out of the way give Manchin a heave ho down the Capitol steps where he can negotiate with the steps. He is for all intents and purposes a Democrat in name only. It’s easier to believe he is Republican agent than a party Democrat.

Republicans obstruct. Theyndo not govern for America, they govern for themselves and the big corp. All at the expense of the small mom and pops, and the middle class. They continue to take the money from the middle class and give to to the rich. America will be great again once the republican party has perished from the earth.

Infrastructure is needed. Why can't these worthless politicians get it through their heads that the majority of the people are for this bill. Why are Republicans so afraid to let Biden get something done? Why does Pelosi want the other bill for broadband, child care, etc. to go through first? Lets get the infrastructure bill and then work on the other bills that will help rural communities, climate control and families that have to pay child care. Where is the common sense that used to exist in politics? There are too many politicians who are in office just for the power and not what is best for the country.

Until the budget Reconciliation Bill is created and we see what lard is included all work on a bipartisan infrastructure bill should be put on hold. It might duplicate dollars and collectively the two bills combined are likely to destroy the economy with new taxes and wasteful deficit spending.

Our country needs an infrastructure bill, and we can't allow the Party of Obstruction (GOP) to stand in the way. The Senate needs to debate this bill and find a way to pass it. We need the repairs, stimulation, and jobs from this infrastructure bill...unless this is just another bad faith game by the GOP to act like they want to govern. Get it done.

If Republicans keep blocking, ram it through like Mitch McConnell shoved those Supreme Court nominees down our throats.

Haven’t we learned? They keep pretending to negotiate and stall, stall, stall is all they’re doing. Put everything in reconciliation and pass it. Then the filibuster must go. If not, no amount of organizing will save democrats.

Wow eireprof, you clearly know NOTHING about American Civics. Well, you and nearly every US Democrat.

We need an infrastructure package now!!!

Of course, it is necessary for the well being of the country. The Democrats should also be forthright that if need be, the filibuster will be eliminated if the GOP doesn't participate in good faith compromise. Time to play hardball.

So much money has been thrown out there and I’m not confident it gets used in appropriate and effective ways. CA and the homeless is a prime example. We keep throwing money at the problem and it continues to get worse. Such incompetent leadership!

Sure the bipartisan group should keep at it. The Republican Senate will not pass it for some made up ‘reason’ or another. Didn’t McConnell promise that he would not allow any of Biden’s initiatives see the light of day? Hasn’t McConnell done this with all Democratic initiated legislation for the last twelve years - with only a few minor cases where they saw ways to benefit financially from enacting Democratic legislation. ( for example, the PPP program which was supposed to be monitored by the IG to ensure the funds were used as intended instead of funding congresspeople’s personal businesses, the trump family’s businesses or prominent benefactor’s businesses. The IG was removed by the trump as soon as the bill was passed and the hogs were off to the trough feeding off the funds intended to support small locality owned mom and pop businesses who had a hard time finding a way to get to the front of the line.) … … … The bipartisan effort can be made part of the reconciliation package as an example that bipartisan agreements are possible if the Republican leadership can be removed and no longer interfere with the process. Manchin and others who want to minimize the funding or hang on to grossly outdated one-and-done obstructionist filibuster rules needs a ‘come to Jesus’ talking to and face some severe political consequences if he continues to want to underfund Biden’s initiatives. His big money donors will not be available to him anymore if he gets booted out of office. If he were a Republican, he would have been censured multiple times and condemned long ago for undercutting the will of his party. The censuring will be much more aggressive and much more impactful if he blocks the will of the majority of Republican voters, Democratic and Independent voters alike who all strongly support Biden’s initiatives - all of them.

I don’t know whether they should keep working. There’s a lot with this bill I’m really not happy with. Just today, it was announced that the “pay-fors” - such a nice insider feel to that non-word, isn’t there? - are almost worked out. Unsurprisingly, because the Republicans have to be wooed, the part that would have funded the IRS so the agency could have increased auditing and enforced tax laws was dropped because the Republicans’ benefactors - read folks like the Koch family - “pushed back” against it. “Leaders of conservative organizations are urging GOP lawmakers to "push the reset button" on a bipartisan infrastructure deal and not include any additional IRS funding in such a package…. Signers of the letter include Stephen Moore, a former outside economic adviser to former President Trump and a co-founder of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, as well as Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist and FreedomWorks President Adam Brandon.”https://thehill.com/policy/finance/562088-conservatives-say-bipartisan-infrastructure-deal-shouldnt-include-irs-funding Isn’t it interesting that these same people have no objection to a tax act that gives them tax breaks and adds 30-40% to the federal deficit? “Spending $40 billion more on IRS tax enforcement to make sure everyone is paying what they owe would raise $103 billion, according to CBO. This means cracking down on individuals and corporations not paying what they owe would net $63 billion…. CBO explains that it did not account for indirect effects of increased enforcement, meaning some potential tax cheaters would decide not to even try it because they know that the IRS is stepping up enforcement. https://itep.org/congressional-budget-office-confirms-that-irs-budget-cuts-lose-money-and-benefit-the-rich/ “The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently released new estimates of the “tax gap” – the amount of taxes owed that go uncollected. They reveal that only 84 percent of the money owed in taxes is collected each year, which resulted in a "net tax gap" of $406 billion per year on average between 2008 and 2010. That amount is a combined $458 billion not voluntarily paid and another $52 billion collected after the IRS contacted those who were delinquent. The net tax gap of $406 billion is about 2.8 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which would be equivalent to $6.5 trillion over the next decade. Most of the tax gap – $387 billion, or 84 percent of the gross amount – comes from taxpayers underreporting income. Approximately half of the net tax gap ($203 billion) comes from underreported pass-through business income, small corporation income, and the self-employment payroll tax. In addition to underreporting, underpayments accounted for $39 billion of the tax gap and those that didn't file any returns accounted for $32 billion. The vast majority of underpayments and nonfilers ($55 billion) came from individual income taxes, though the IRS does not break out exactly where they came from. It makes a big difference whether tax is withheld or if income is at least reported to the IRS. When income is neither reported or withheld, 63 percent of that income was misreported. When income was withheld, the misreporting rate drops to 1 percent. https://www.crfb.org/blogs/irs-loses-400-billion-year-unpaid- The Republicans in lockstep as usual (where are those 10, Joe and Kirsten?) refuse to roll back any of the gifts they gave corporations and the wealthy in the so-calked 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act which could restore billions to the federal budget and reduce the national deficit in order to pay for infrastructure critical to health, safety, and national security. “The most appropriate test of the revenue impact of the TCJA is to compare actual revenues in FY2018 with predicted revenues in FY2018 assuming Congress had not passed the legislation. In fact, the actual amount of revenue collected in FY2018 was significantly lower than the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) projection of FY2018 revenue made in January 2017—before the tax cuts were signed into law in December 2017. The shortfall was $275 billion, or 7.6% of revenues that were expected before the tax cuts took place. Given that the economy grew, and in the absence of another policy that could have caused a large revenue loss, the data imply that the TCJA substantially reduced revenues (Figure 1). The TCJA’s changes mostly affected the corporate and individual income taxes (Figure 2). The act reduced the top corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%—a 40% reduction. Actual corporate income tax revenue in FY2018 was $135 billion lower than CBO’s projection from 2017—almost exactly a 40% decline. The most recent CBO projections estimate further decreases in corporate tax revenue. The TCJA also reduced income taxes for most Americans, which led to a decline in revenues relative to prior projections. For individual income taxes, actual collections in FY2018 were $97 billion, or 5.4%, below pre-TCJA projections.” https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020/votervital/did-the-2017-tax-cut-the-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act-pay-for-itself/ This was dropped, but a delay in implementing the Trump-era rule that would save Medicare recipients some money by removing industry kickbacks paid by Big Pharma to care managers from the equation and gave Medicare recipients some breaks on co-pays is in this package. “The Medicare rule, promulgated under President Donald Trump, eliminates rebates drug companies give benefit managers in Medicare Part D and was aimed at reducing out-of-pocket costs for patients outside Medicare. Delaying the rule reduces expenditures by the Medicare program, producing a budgetary windfall the negotiators want to use to help pay for roads, bridges and other projects…. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that repealing the rule would cut federal Medicare spending by about $177 billion over a decade. Negotiators are delaying it for less than 10 years, but have not revealed how long.” https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-22/senate-infrastructure-deal-in-sight-after-medicare-agreement So the bipartisan agreement is that Medicare recipients - among the financially and medically most vulnerable will pay for infrastructure - albeit indirectly. Meanwhile, Congress has refused to enact legislation that would prevent the exploitation of American citizens by capping what Big Pharma charges for drugs and stopping Big Pharma’s abuse of the patent laws to maintain their monopoly as well as high prices on their drugs indefinitely by smothering generics and competition. And, no, I’m not elderly, currently reliant on Medicare, or on a fixed income at this time. I will be one day, though. Most of us will be someday, since the Bush tax law and banking law changes that prompted corporations to do away with pensions. Whenever we complain about Social Security recipients or those on Medicate, we should probably keep that in mind. I don’t even know what else this bipartisan group has negotiated that will make life harder and more expensive for what little remains of the middle and lower socioeconomic classes, but I’m pretty sure it’s in there - from provisions removed to watered down elements that are focused on helping those two groups. I think the reconciliation bill underway should be stuffed with anything the Democrats can get away with that will fulfill our “human infrastructure” needs because it’s the only way the elderly, poor, and middle class are going to get any help.

But it looks like the Repos want to repossess their agreement. It shows that the Republicans aren’t trustworthy.

It’s hard to seek true bipartisanship when the corporate democrats continually go to the bargaining table already caving to republicans.

Republican must stop being cry babies and obstruct progress and think of the country as oppose to party of one.

You can’t trust the Democrats. Where is the cost for each item on the list.

Republicans should continue to work with Democrats on infrastructure and other much needed legislation. They won’t. The leadership tells you they won’t. Their “job” is to obstruct. Get rid of the filibuster. Get things done. Take the credit Dems. Watch the Republican Party wither away.

I like clean water, clean air, sewage disposed of properly I love driving over a bridge as long as the bridge is not going to crumble and dump me in the river Roads crumbling Potholes the size of Godzilla Failing infrastructure in a country this wealthy is a disgrace Fix it