Infrastructure

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, yesterday, the majority leader teed up the first procedural vote on an infrastructure bill that no one has seen yet.

Our colleagues on both sides of the aisle have been hard at work for weeks negotiating in good faith to get a balanced agreement on an issue that virtually everyone supports. Infrastructure is not a partisan issue.

But at this time, we have no details about how this deal would achieve our common goals. There is no bill text. We don't know what is in and what is out, no information about how it will be paid for and no score from the Congressional Budget Office to tell us whether the proposed pay-fors are credible.

Now, we have been through an extraordinary pandemic, during which we have done some pretty extraordinary things when it comes to spending at the Federal level.

I think the closest equivalent to the pandemic is World War II. Of course, this was a domestic war or battle against the virus, trying to deal with the public health consequences and the economic consequences as well.

I voted for trillions of dollars of Federal spending, something I never thought I would do in the face of an emergency, a global emergency.

But there is no emergency that exists for an infrastructure bill. This is part of the bread and butter of what governments do at the local level, the State level, and at the Federal level, and it is simply irresponsible and reckless to borrow more money from future generations and to throw gasoline on the fire that is already burning when it comes to inflation in pursuit of a bill that everybody will probably, ultimately, if given enough and opportunity, will ultimately come up with a negotiated bipartisan outcome.

I also am not going to vote to proceed to a bill that my constituents, the 29 million people I represent--they don't know what is in the bill either.

Well, all this doesn't sound like a recipe for success. These are the types of things that typically would be ironed out before you bring a bill to the floor. It is obvious this legislation is not ready for prime time, not even close.

As I said, the specifics of the bill are still being negotiated by our colleagues, of course, with the White House. We are days away from having the opportunity to read a bill, let alone provide the Congressional Budget Office the opportunity to calculate the cost.

Republicans and Democrats may disagree on a lot these days, but I hope we could all agree that it is not wise to advance legislation before you know what is in it.

That is why it is so baffling to me that the majority leader, the Senator from New York, is forcing a vote on this bill before it is even ready.

Of course, that raises a very significant question. Why in the world would he do that? Why is he rushing through with the final stage of what has been a productive bipartisan process?

The only logical conclusion I can come up with is he wants this bill and this bipartisan effort to fail.

Why else would he push forward with a vote when he knows it is doomed from the start?

I believe the Senator from New York wants this vote to fail because he really wants to go the partisan route; namely, the big, ugly, multitrillion dollar spending spree that Bernie Sanders and others have been advocating.

He doesn't need Republican votes to do that, and he can implement some of the most radical policies on the far left's wish list, things like the Green New Deal, massive tax hikes, crippling new economic regulations.

It is pretty obvious that has been the goal all along. Why else would the President himself say, once he negotiated a bipartisan deal: Well, I am not going to sign this bipartisan deal until we pass our partisan wish list. There is now $3 trillion proposed. It is for the same reason Nancy Pelosi said she is not going to let the bipartisan bill, even were we to pass it, see the light of day until she knows that the $3 trillion tax-and-spending spree is successful, which will require all 50 Democratic Senators plus the Vice President.

It is just strange to me to see a designed-to-fail strategy, unless it is for some political purpose.

So, Senator Schumer, if you are listening, please don't do it. Call off the vote. Let the bipartisan group finish their work. Don't set up a vote that will fail just because you want to appease the far left of your party, because if the vote happens and we don't have bill text or a cost estimate by the time it rolls around, it will necessarily fail.

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