In an unexplainable act that dispersed a Democrat civil conflict and gave Joe Biden a huge win, thirteen Republicans crossed the aisle last week. On Friday, enough members of the far-left “squad” were prepared to vote down the bipartisan infrastructure bill until GOP members stepped to the fore to give Pelosi what she needed.
There are a lot of reasons to be angry about that as a Republican, and we’ll get to some of those. But to set things up, I want to start this clip of GOP Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) on Fox News this morning defending her vote as one of the baker’s dozen who pushed through Biden’s agenda.
You don’t have to be against a bill to get it on the other side. Vote for a bill to protect your constituents. @RepMalliotakisShe explains her vote for President Biden’s infrastructure package pic.twitter.com/wQA0qB8hp7
— America’s Newsroom (@AmericaNewsroom) November 9, 2021
To be blunt, this is condescending garbage. Malliotakis’s statement here suggests that Republicans oppose bipartisan infrastructure bills because they are political. That is a stance I completely reject. We do like the occasional libs. We do. However, this extends beyond just giving Biden an easy win on one key plank of his policy platform.
The reality is that the country is in the midst of an inflationary boom, with today’s numbers being enough to make your eyes water. Inflation in producers rose 8.6% from a year ago, the most significant increase since 2004, a time when many countries have experienced financial crisis. Due to high energy prices, and a supply-chain crisis, the middle-class is in serious trouble. It is not possible for the government to inject more money through some infrastructure bill.
It is, indeed, a boondoggle. Everything from “tree equity,” to payoffs for Joe Manchin’s wife, to money for fixing “racist” roads, is in there. But even if we assumed the bill was itself sound — and it’s not — who in their right mind would trust the Biden administration to be responsible with the distribution of these funds, especially since so much of it goes through our corrupt, inefficient bureaucracy?
Malliotakis is the one who answers that question. She believes that this bill is absolutely necessary for her constituents. And she has no concern about incompetence of government. That’s fine, but she shouldn’t be surprised when she finds herself with a primary challenger next year who will test that theory.
At the end of the day, there’s a reason these blue-state Republicans made up the majority of the GOP “yes” votes for the infrastructure bill. These people live in areas that have been mismanaged by Democrats at both the local and state levels. But instead of working to change that reality on the ground, they’d rather fleece taxpayers in Florida and Texas in order to dump more money into the bottomless pit that is a city like New York. Malliotakis’s failure to demonstrate that they are against reckless behavior is a sign of the GOP. If Republicans want to win big in 2022, this isn’t the way to do it.
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