Fahrenthold: House basically has ‘to take whatever the Senate gives it’ on infrastructure bill
Aug 10, 2021, 3:24 PM
Sen. Rick Scott (R) (R-FL) leaves a Republican caucus luncheon at the U.S. Capitol on August 10, 2021 in Washington, DC. The Senate moved on to budgetary resolutions following the passage of the infrastructure bill earlier today. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
The U.S. Senate has passed a $1 trillion version of the president’s grand vision for the nation’s infrastructure after months of back and forth. Even after this, passage in the House is not guaranteed.
Washington lawmaker explains how the infrastructure bill impacts us all
Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold told Seattle’s Morning News he thinks the House will hold it up in the end, in part because every congressional district has roads and bridges.
Additionally, he explains that a similar process has happened during Biden’s term before, where someone from the left says “there’s not enough for this or that in it.” But, as Fahrenthold points out, Nancy Pelosi usually gets the votes, even with a thin Democratic majority.
“I don’t think anybody … on the Democratic side wants to see Joe Biden’s sort of signature achievement, the thing they all plan to campaign on next year, go down because it could be bigger,” Fahrenthold said.
“The Senate is not going to go back and reopen this,” he added. “So the House is pretty much going to have to take whatever the Senate gives it.”
While KIRO Radio’s Aaron Mason says spending on crumbling infrastructure seems like something that makes common sense, it also seems like it’s pulling teeth just to get anything done in D.C.
“I think the Senate is celebrating this actually as both an easy and fast example of the Senate working. So that just shows you sort of how low the standards have been set,” Fahrenthold replied. “Like this is something … that they didn’t need to break the filibuster to do, more than 60 votes are going to vote for this. It took a lot of wrangling, but they’re going to get it done.”
“They’ve been having parties on Senator Joe Manchin’s houseboat where a lot of Republicans and Democrats get together to talk about this. So they think this is a huge success and it just shows you how big this is,” he said. “This is a really big, complicated bill. But [it also shows] how little experience the current crop of senators has with the kind of big compromises that used to be what the Senate did all the time.”
Listen to Seattle’s Morning News weekday mornings from 5 – 9 a.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.
-
Tune in to KIRO Newsradio weekdays at 5am for Dave Ross on Seattle's Morning News.
