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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’s Newsroom on Fox News to discuss President Biden’s decision to end infrastructure negotiations after good-faith efforts by Senator Capito and fellow Republicans.
HIGHLIGHTS:
ON END OF INFRASTRUCTURE NEGOTIATIONS: “In the end we never got to the scope of what infrastructure is. The president still had in his plan extraneous items we felt that were not exactly physical infrastructure. They kept moving the goalposts on us. Originally, they said one trillion and they said we could write it to eight years, and we could include the baseline, which as you know is spending that we spend every year on infrastructure, which is critical. Then they said no, no we didn’t really mean that so it became confusing…the president told me yesterday on the phone, very respectfully, that he was ending our negotiation.”
ON WHITE HOUSE’S COMMITMENT TO RAISING TAXES: “The payfors that they brought to me the final time were many taxes. We had told them before we could do this without raising taxes and we gave them great opportunity to look at our payfors and how we would pay for this. I think when they brought the tax hikes before me the last time when I was in the Oval Office I knew they weren’t really serious at that point…I’m a bit disappointed and frustrated that the White House kept moving the ball on me and then finally just brought me negotiations that were untenable and then ended the negotiations altogether."
ON IMPACT OF PRESIDENT BIDEN WALKING AWAY: “We’ve been able to agree on these things for years. I already have the surface transportation bill with Senator Carper out of our committee, unanimously. We have water/wastewater bill that we got 89-2 over the Senate floor so there’s a real hunger for this. I think the American people lose because they want to see us work together. Not to mention what happens to our infrastructure if we don’t get a more robust effort here when we have the opportunity to do it.”
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