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WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, today joined America Reports on Fox News to discuss the progress on the Senate’s bipartisan infrastructure legislation as well as the Democrats’ plans to tax and spend trillions of dollars in a separate, partisan spending bill.
HIGHLIGHTS:
ON BIPARTISAN INFRASTRUCTURE BILL: “I've seen the text. I'm the Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works Committee. We worked hand in hand with the bipartisan group on text and technicalities to help merge this bill with the surface transportation bill that we passed unanimously…in our committee, and also the water infrastructure bill that we passed out of our committee. So I'm very well-versed on what's in this bill. I think it's going to be good for the country. It’s paid for and I think that we need to move forward.”
ON WHAT THE BIPARTISAN BILL DOES: “We were able to, by reaching this agreement, narrow the focus to physical infrastructure, to necessities of modernizing our transportation system, extending broadband to every community, working on our ports and our airports, and our water and getting rid of lead pipes. These are all job-creating, economy-stimulating functions of physical infrastructure. So, we agree…essentially, that this is the core of what we should be working on. In terms of the pay-fors, it's been a stretch and we knew that would be difficult and repurposing COVID dollars is in there, a lot of other ways to pay for this really essential infrastructure. I think as time goes on and we have the final bill, which I've seen almost all of it, by tomorrow I think we're going to pick up probably some more Republican votes and I think everybody's going to want to take this home to their constituents.”
ON DEMOCRATS’ PLAN TO PUSH THROUGH A PARTISAN, MULTI-TRILLION DOLLAR TAX AND SPENDING SPREE: “A ridiculous waste of spending. Reckless spending, reckless taxes. They don't even know what they're going to put in it. They just know they want to spend a whole heck of a lot of money and raise a whole heck of a lot of taxes. We’re going to fight tooth and nail to try to stop this. We've always known that the mechanism of which they're going to pass this whether it's $3.5 or $5 trillion package is going to be all partisan, all Democrats. We’ve got to put pressure on them to say look, we've got inflationary worries here. We’ve seen a slower recovery than what was predicted, and this is a waste of the taxpayer’s dollars at the wrong time.”
ON COMMENTS BY HOUSE MEMBERS CRITICIZING THE RACE OF INFRASTRUCTURE NEGOTIATORS: “I really think that's a sad commentary on the people making those comments. Let's look at who's in the group. People from Alaska, people from Montana, people from West Virginia, people from Virginia. This is the diversity of our country and to just denigrate this because they want to play the racism card that they think is successful for them…shows how ludicrous that accusation is. This is broadband to everybody. This is better roads for anybody. It's more bike trails. It's climate change legislation. It's better water. It's less poisoning for your children in their water systems because of lead pipes. It's very, very, very far reaching. That's ludicrous on the face of it. It's obvious neither one of them have read this bill. They have no idea how far encompassing this is, how transformational the president thinks this can be. It's so laughable I don't even want to answer the accusation, honestly, it's so divisive to this country. We're in this together. Come on. Get on the team.”
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