Republicans stood by and did NOT vote for President Biden’s Stimulus /Virus Bill….
The move by Biden and Democrats has earned them positive polling numbers and left the Republicans stumped….
We now have some Republican Senator’s talking to Democrats about Biden’s push for his next major piece of legislation…
Some Republicans are well aware that despite the no voting for anything from Biden in Congress?
State and local Republican officials ARE eagerly taking stimulus money and are looking forward to infrastructure money and the capital improvements and jobs it will generate…
The Trump influence seems to be slowly waning in the US Senate as Biden’s effort for bipartisanship comes there first….Of course Senate Republicans are doing this with the approval of their Minority Leader McConnell, Not Trump……
Senate Republicans on Tuesday discussed the outlines of a scaled-down infrastructure bill they say could pass the Democratic-led Congress with strong bipartisan support.
The entire Senate GOP conference during its weekly lunch meeting discussed the emerging proposal after getting a briefing from Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), the ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee.
Capito is leading negotiations among a smaller group of GOP moderates who met with President Biden earlier this year. The group held a meeting late afternoon Monday to narrow Biden’s proposed $2.25 trillion infrastructure plan into something in the range of $600 billion to $800 billion….
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“There is a core infrastructure bill that we could pass. … So let’s do it and leave the rest for another day and another fight,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a close McConnell ally, said on “Fox News Sunday” over the weekend.
He added Republicans are ready to work with Democrats even if Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) will use the reconciliation process later this year to pass the parts of Biden’s agenda that they don’t agree with.
It’s a change in tone from earlier this year, when Republicans said they weren’t going to “take the bait” of working with Biden on a scaled-down bipartisan infrastructure package if Schumer was going to follow it up with a $1 trillion to $2 trillion package that passes only with Democratic votes through the budget reconciliation process.
“If they decide to do that as a ploy to lure Republicans in to vote for the easy stuff and then do all the controversial stuff through reconciliation, I don’t think our guys will take the bait on that,” Senate Minority Whip John Thune(R-S.D.) said in March of scaled-down package focused on traditional infrastructure.
On Tuesday, Thune said he now sees “a pathway” to reaching an infrastructure deal with Biden and Schumer….
Democrats Reject GOP Counteroffer on Infrastructure
Politico: “Democrats are roundly rejecting a still unfinished counteroffer to President Joe Biden’s $2.5 trillion spending package, potentially moving the slim Senate majority ever-closer to abandoning talks with Republicans on a bipartisan bill.”
“Democrats argue that the GOP plan to spend fewer than $1 trillion and focus on brick and mortar infrastructure is a non-starter and is not the basis for bipartisan negotiations.”
Political Wire
GOPer’s don’t want to miss the boat again, eh?
Senate Republicans are signaling that they could raise the price tag of their infrastructure offer to President Joe Biden, days ahead of a pivotal series of meetings that could make-or-break Biden’s hopes for a bipartisan deal.
While Democrats have panned the GOP’s initial $568 billion bid as insufficient, several Republican negotiators said in interviews on Monday night that they were willing to go higher — as long as the bill in question is limited to physical infrastructure….
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