Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., addresses the media at a COVID vaccination site at Kroger Field in Lexington, Ky., Monday, April 5, 2021. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley)
OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 6:38 AM PT – Tuesday, April 13, 2021
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) condemned Joe Biden’s $2.5 trillion infrastructure plan while calling it a list of the left’s priciest priorities.
While speaking on the Senate floor Monday, the Kentucky lawmaker criticized Biden for only allocating 6 percent of funds to basic infrastructure projects like roads and bridges.
“It’s not remotely targeted toward what Americans think they are getting when politicians campaign on infrastructure,” he stated.
The massive spending bill includes $20 billion to apparently “reconnect neighborhoods cut off by historic investments and ensure new projects increase opportunity, advance racial equity, environmental justice and promote affordable access.”
It also includes a $5 billion increase in funding for climate-focused research, a $10 billion investment for Civilian Climate Corps and $174 billion to “win the electric vehicle market.” Not to mention, $40 billion to a new dislocated workers program and sector-based training.
McConnell said the Biden administration is trying to change the very definition of infrastructure.
“But instead of coming up with a better bill, Democrats have decided it’s the English language that has to change,” he asserted. “They are embarking on an Orwellian campaign to convince everybody that any government policy whatsoever can be labeled infrastructure.”
Democrats’ “infrastructure” proposal goes way beyond what working Americans would call infrastructure. It tries to use a bipartisan issue as a Trojan horse for tax hikes and miscellaneous liberal policies.
We need to tackle infrastructure in a more targeted way. pic.twitter.com/GWlADEG2SD
— Leader McConnell (@LeaderMcConnell) April 8, 2021
The top Republican noted, “these Trojan horse tactics have become a pattern.” McConnell added, the so-called American Jobs Plan could lead to the biggest tax hike in a generation and devastate the average American in need of economic recovery.
“It would gut right to work, protecting for blue collar workers,” McConnell stressed. “They even want to include a special state and local tax division to benefit wealthy residents of blue states.”
He insisted Republicans are “deeply interested” in improving basic U.S. infrastructure and are calling on Biden along with Democrat lawmakers to approach it from a traditional standpoint if they wish to gain conservative support.
McConnell warned if Democrats just declare “our way or the highway, “it will be clear they are choosing to create political controversies rather than make progress for American families.
