For the first time in a long time, Americans are starting to see some good news about infrastructure. The Biden White House boasts about major new projects and investments on a nearly daily basis; Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor, has reason to celebrate an impressive infrastructure triumph in Philadelphia; and J.B. Pritzker, Illinois’ Democratic governor recently announced the largest multi-year infrastructure repair program in state history.
It’s against this backdrop that congressional Republicans are making a new push — to cut infrastructure funding. Reminding readers about the bipartisan infrastructure package that passed in the last Congress, The Washington Post reported, “It took decades for Congress to deliver on its promise to pour new money into the nation’s roads, bridges, pipes, ports and internet connections. Now, House Republicans are trying to slash some of the same funds.”
A series of GOP bills to finance the federal government in 2024 would wipe out billions of dollars meant to repair the nation’s aging infrastructure, potentially undercutting a 2021 law that was one of Washington’s rare recent bipartisan achievements. The proposed cuts could hamstring some of the most urgently needed public-works projects across the country, from improving rail safety to reducing lead contamination at schools.
The Post’s article added that congressional Republicans — in the name of “fiscal responsibility” that the party ignored before there was a Democrat in the Oval Office — are pushing these cuts “at a time when the country is grappling with the real-life consequences of its own infrastructure failures, from train derailments in Ohio and Pennsylvania to the collapse of a key portion of Interstate 95 in Philadelphia last month.”
It’s worth emphasizing that some GOP lawmakers are pushing for these reductions, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll succeed: The Democratic-led Senate and the Biden administration will have some say in the matter.
But the fact that so many members of the House Republican majority see this as an area ripe for budget cuts — despite recent polling showing Americans calling for greater infrastructure investments — says a great deal about the contemporary GOP’s priorities. There’s also, of course, the relevant fact that more than a few House Republicans are trying to take credit for infrastructure projects in their districts — even after they voted against the bills that made these investments possible, and even after they denounced the underlying legislation as “socialism.” Trying to cut the funding several GOP lawmakers have celebrated doesn’t make their hypocrisy any easier to defend.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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