Sunday’s ABC “This Week” witnessed a furious Sen. John Barrasso opening up to the various ways in which President Biden’s extravagant spending will hamper the growth of the economy. He emphatically declared how Biden’s big payments held an uncanny resemblance to “someone with a new credit card.”
Till date, President Biden has spent a large chunk on his spending bills including the fairly successful $2 trillion American Rescue Plan, the $2 trillion infrastructure proposal, and his $1.8 trillion American Families Plan. In the program’s segment with co-host Martha Raddatz, Sen. Barrasso declared that the outlay is primarily on “things that we don’t necessarily need and certainly can’t afford.”
His views on the President’s lavish style of spending were simple: At the end of it all, someone will be responsible to pay for it. The Senate Republican Leader further added how these major chunks of investment by President Biden have just created an unhealthy addiction to spending. According to Barrasso, Biden’s spending bills aren’t sitting too well with several Democrats who have started to get more and more anxious about the nature of the spending, which isn’t sustainable in the long run.
In response, Raddatz referred to Sen. Shelley Moore Capito’s $586 billion counter offer to Biden’s infrastructure proposal. The plan introduced by Moore Capito in April cut the total spending down, but also focused entirely on main infrastructure items like bridges, roads, airports, railways and public transport. It leaves out core elements of Biden’s $2 trillion plan including heavy funding for home care, electric cars and housing facilities.
Barrasso didn’t accept the points made by Raddatz and continued to criticize President Biden’s infrastructure plan. He took forward a popular claim of Republicans, declaring that the plan only allocates a meagre 6% to basic infrastructure. However, his conviction didn’t last for too long as Raddatz was quick to retort that these figures had been checked and proved to be false. She further stated that the plan incorporates a 25% contribution to core infrastructure, pointedly asking Barrasso if he “wanted more.”
Subsequently, Barrasso expressed his views on how a compromise can help placate both parties if some points of President Biden’s plan are discarded. He pointed out how he had been in talks with Sen. Joe Manchin of Washington and had reached a conclusion: If things like “Green New Deal” and other similar aspects are removed, the cost would cut back significantly.
In the words of Barrasso himself, Republicans want to “work together with this administration.” He cited the time where the Republicans met with President Biden at the White House to talk about other packages where the President completely ignored the opinion of the opposing parties by adopting a method of budget reconciliation.
