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Biden Hopes to Get GOP On Board Infrastructure Spending Bill Tied to Earmarks
Posted
March 16, 2021
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0:50Now PlayingPresident Joe Biden’s next big economic package helped set off a heated debate among Republicans over whether to participate in the return of lawmakers’ dedicated-spending projects, known as earmarks, a tussle that could be key to its success.
After muscling his $1.9 trillion pandemic-relief bill through Congress without a single Republican vote, Biden is hoping to bring GOP members aboard an infrastructure package set to be a core part of his longer-term economic plan, estimated at trillions of dollars.
Speeding a complex, multi-year initiative through Capitol Hill will be largely impossible without the GOP, due to Senate rules. To make negotiations easier, Democrats rescinded a 2011 ban on so-called spending earmarks. If Republicans decide to amend party rules in coming weeks and follow suit, it could be a good sign Biden’s bill gets done.
“I’ve always been in favor of members of Congress making the decisions and not bureaucrats,” Representative Sam Graves, the top Republican on the House Transportation Committee, said in an interview. He hopes for a decision within the GOP in the spring, while holding off on predicting the outcome.
Earmarks could allow the kind of trading between legislators that maximizes bipartisan support, and advocates say that greater transparency measures make wasteful spending less of a concern than in the early 2000s. Democrats plan to allow them on transportation and water infrastructure bills as well as annual appropriations bills. Earmarked spending will be capped, disclosed on the Internet and certified not to benefit the lawmaker or her family.
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