Despite criticism from conservatives that President Joe Biden’s $1.2 infrastruture bill was too costly and contained funds for unrelated projects, Arkansas’ Republican Gov. and National Governors Association (NGA) Chairman Asa Hutchinson has no regrets for supporting the measure.
"The NGA supported it," Hutchinson told Newsmax Saturday between sessions of the NGA’s winter meeting in Washington, D.C., adding that his state will received $4 billion from the bill.
Like the 13 House Republicans who voted for the infrastructure bill, Hutchinson made clear he was strongly opposed to the Build Back Better (BBB) bill that the White House has struggled to get through the Senate.
"There’s a big difference between the infrastructure bill and the BBB, with all of its social spending and which I’m against," he told us.
Hutchinson did concede that there were parts of the infrastructure bill that contained things he didn’t like—"like some of the pro-union things in it which will be difficult in a right-to-work state such as Arkansas."
But, he quickly added, "a lot of us [Republicans] wanted and supported an infrastructure bill back in the Trump Administration."
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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