President Joe Biden is now expected to sign the bipartisan infrastructure deal.
Breitbart reports that, On Saturday, Biden walked back his threat to veto the bipartisan infrastructure deal if a package was not attached to it that included funding for his more radical infrastructure ideas.
The latest
Biden walked back his threat in a statement that was issued by the White House on Saturday.
“At a press conference after announcing the bipartisan agreement, I indicated that I would refuse to sign the infrastructure bill if it was sent to me without my Families Plan and other priorities, including clean energy,” Biden wrote. “That statement understandably upset some Republicans, who do not see the two plans as linked; they are hoping to defeat my Families Plan—and do not want their support for the infrastructure plan to be seen as aiding passage of the Families Plan.”
He continued: “My comments also created the impression that I was issuing a veto threat on the very plan I had just agreed to, which was certainly not my intent. So to be clear: our bipartisan agreement does not preclude Republicans from attempting to defeat my Families Plan; likewise, they should have no objections to my devoted efforts to pass that Families Plan and other proposals in tandem. We will let the American people—and the Congress—decide.”
Accordingly, Biden said that he intends to support the bipartisan infrastructure package.
Background
It was on Thursday that the bipartisan infrastructure package was announced. Biden, followed that announcement up by making a statement that indicated that he would not sign the bipartisan proposal without a separate package to fund his other infrastructure ideas.
“We need physical infrastructure, but we also need the human infrastructure as well,” Biden said. “We’re going to have to do that through the budget process and we need a fair tax system to pay for it all.”
This prompted criticism, most importantly, from the group of bipartisan senators who have been negotiating this infrastructure bill. For a while, it appeared as though Biden’s threat was going to upend the whole thing, as many of these Senators seemed to indicate that they might remove their support from even the bipartisan measure.
With Biden’s latest statement, walking back that threat, however, it now appears that these senators are back on board. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), for example, gave an interview on Sunday in which he expressed his belief that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will continue to support the bipartisan infrastructure deal.
“If we can pull this off, I think Mitch will favor it,” Cassidy said.
If true, then it appears virtually certain that the bipartisan infrastructure proposal will be passed.
The post Pres. Biden walks back his infrastructure threat first appeared on Conservative Institute.
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