Sen. Bill Cassidy to Newsmax TV: GOP Infrastructure Is More for Less

The Republican counter proposal for infrastructure shows the way to bipartisan support for true infrastructure improvements in America, according to Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., on Newsmax TV.

"Twice as much for roads and bridges, but only spending about a quarter as much money," Cassidy told Saturday's "American Right Now," noting the traditional infrastructure package proposed by Republicans includes airports and waterways.

"These are the things that make Americans move, help goods move, truly create jobs — not just when you are constructing not just maintaining a bridge, a road, a harbor — it is also something that leads to future economic growth.

"And, did I say that it saves money relative to the Biden plan?"

Cassidy told host Tom Basile he has no desire to control the structure of the Biden administration's infrastructure plan, but he does want to give Democrats a way to earn bipartisan support.

"Now I won't be surprised if we end of someplace between this proposal and theirs, but I think it kind of establishes the priorities of what we should be spending money on," Cassidy added.

"We can do what we want to do without raising all the taxes that the tax-and-spend Democrats want to do."

Taxation is not the way to find funds for things, growth is, as the Trump administration showed, according to Cassidy.

"Republicans pointed the way, Tom, on how to have economic success," Cassidy continued. "That was to lower the tax rate. I'm afraid Democrats who want to raise the tax rate are going in the other direction."

The pay-fors have stalled numerous administrations in attempting to pass infrastructure plans for decades, Cassidy noted.

"Well, you gotta pay for it, and folks are reluctant, rightly, to raise taxes," he said. "And then you have to have the right vision. Sometimes people want to put unrelated things in it like the Biden administration is doing right now. And that increases the price tag and makes it more difficult to pass.

"If you focus on the roads, the bridges, the airports, the ports, the water ways, and you find a reasonable way to pay for it, we can do something. We need to do something, and that's why I am committed to trying to do so."

Democrats are failing short to even cram through Biden's $2.3 trillion package without Republican votes, which is the only reasons Republicans might ultimately have a say in what the package contains.

"If they don't have the votes among their Democratic base, then they're serious about negotiating with us; let's not gussy this up any," Cassidy concluded. "I think it shows just how extreme their tax and spend policies were that they don't have the votes from the Democratic side of the aisle.

"But that's the way our Founding Fathers set it up: If you come up with something so extreme, so tax-and-spend extreme that the other party just puts the brakes on it, then you find something that both can live with. And that's the way it's supposed to work.

"If we get something, I don't think it will be entirely what I want, but I do think it will meet the needs of the American people."

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