Thread by @RepBethVanDuyne

14 hours on zoom today(yesterday) for our T&I meeting. 14 hours of an up close look at the brokenness of Washington. (thread)

Some things should not be political- highways, bridges, runways, but in Biden’s America, everything is political. So today(yesterday), for 14 hours, we argued about infrastructure.

Were the most contentious fights about a major highway? A huge bridge renovation? No, it was about spending $200 million for a park in Speaker Pelosi’s home district.

Another Congress, another fight about California’s bloated, over budget high speed rail system. Democrats will say they want to use the budget for human infrastructure- but not at the expense of their pet projects that cost billions.

More hours, more votes strictly down party lines. Republican amendments, even things that should be bipartisan like stopping child labor were voted down because an R beside the name was simply too much to bear.

All of us have things we care about and reasons we wanted to serve on this important committee, my amendment attempted to reign in spending if inflation was too high- to prevent causing a further spike and wreaking havoc on our economy- denied.

My colleagues asked for other seemingly innocuous things that the Democrats simply could not support.

Tonight the Democrats passed on our committee’s part of a package that no Republican will (and no moderate Democrat should) be able to support. It will pass and then go to the Senate where it will not have the votes to pass.

The Democrats refusal to stop their out of control spending spree will leave our country in gridlock for the rest of 2021 while inflation continues to rise and cause real damage to real families.