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Manchin, Capito address infrastructure

CHARLESTON — West Virginia’s two U.S. Senators spoke out Thursday on a busy day on Capitol Hill as the hard infrastructure bill’s future was in doubt, progressive and moderate Democrats fought over the cost of human infrastructure and a looming government shutdown was averted.

Sens. Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito talked with the press in two separate briefings Thursday afternoon.

Speaking about the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the $1.2 trillion package of traditional infrastructure projects passed by the Senate in August and up for vote in the U.S. House of Representatives Thursday, Manchin said the House needed to pass the bill.

“It’s got to come together,” Manchin said. “We have a real-good piece of legislation that’s over in the House right now…an infrastructure bill is so desperately needed all over our country. We all worked on that, and it came out here bipartisan.”

The $1.2 trillion package includes $550 billion in new infrastructure spending on a multitude of transportation, water and wastewater, clean energy and broadband expansion projects. The Senate voted 69-30 for the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Progressives in the Senate and House don’t want to move forward with the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act unless there is support for a $3.5 trillion framework of “human infrastructure” projects and social programs based on President Joe Biden’s American Families Plan and parts of the American Jobs Plan that didn’t make it into the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

While details of the $3.5 trillion package are elusive, it is expected to include spending to expand Medicare coverage for dental, vision and hearing, expand coverage in states that have not opted in for increased Medicare coverage, universal pre-kindergarten, child care subsidies, paid family and leave, child tax credits and increases in Pell Grants. Pay-fors would come from tax increases on corporate and international rates.

Manchin has been publicly expressing his displeasure at the $3.5 trillion price tag, raising concerns about raising corporate taxes too high, creating a greater risk of inflation, and lack of means-testing for the programs being proposed. Manchin released a new statement Wednesday reiterating these concerns. According to Politico, Manchin recommended a more slimmed down version costing $1.5 trillion to Democratic leaders earlier this summer.

“The bottom line is I think we should be starting and making sure our priorities are put in the proper place,” Manchin said Thursday. “We need to take a lot of this in consideration and we have a lot of good things we can do…I’m willing to sit down and work through that $1.5 trillion and get our priorities, and they can come back and do later and run on the rest of it later. I think there’s many ways to get to where they want to, just not everything at one time.”

Capito, whose early negotiations with President Joe Biden on infrastructure spending played a role in the crafting of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, has been against the $3.5 trillion since the beginning, voting against the budget resolution that started the process in crafting the package. Speaking Thursday during a briefing with state reporters, Capito reiterated her opposition.

“I think it’s a reckless tax-and-spending bill that is just sort of a wish list of all the things the President would want to put into a major reform of our entire economy at a time when we have high inflation and a lot of trepidation in our economy,” Capito said.

Both Manchin and Capito voted in favor of a continuing resolution to keep the government funded until Dec. 3. The House voted in favor of the continuing resolution Thursday as well. Had the continuing resolution not passed, the government would have shut down at midnight Thursday.

Congress also is considering a bill to raise the debt ceiling to borrow more money to pay for past debt. Senate Democrats want Republicans to vote with them on the debt ceiling, but Republicans say the Democrats have the votes to do it through the reconciliation process without Republican support. If the debt ceiling isn’t passed by Oct. 13, the government could default on its debt.

“They have the votes, they have the prerogative, and they have the policies,” Capito said. “They should be able to pass this. I think Senator (and Majority Leader Mitch) McConnell has made it clear since June and July that we…are not going to participate in this wild spending spree that will cause a rise in the debt ceiling. We’ll have to see how they face it, or if they decide to come to the table with Republicans to reach some kind of compromise.”

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