How Trump set the bipartisan infrastructure bill

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Donald Trump came out against the bipartisan infrastructure bill, but if the measure passes Republican support is still big if we’re likely to thank Trump.

Still banned from Twitter, Trump on Wednesday released a statement that exploded on “RINO” Republican members of Congress who might be tempted to vote for the $ 1 trillion package. “It’s a loser for the USA, a terrible deal, and it makes Republicans weak, stupid, and dumb,” he said. “Don’t do it Republicans Patriots won’t forget! If this deal happens, many primaries will come to you!” So far, at least, Republicans seem to be ignoring the former president.

The obvious problem with Trump’s threat is that it is clearly hypocritical. As Politico said, Trump himself built a $ 1 trillion infrastructure plan as a presidential candidate and nearly backed a $ 2 trillion package in 2019, only to blast it at an Oval Office meeting if where he announced he would not work with the Democrats in Congress until they stopped investigating him. (They didn’t.) Trump isn’t arguing there’s anything wrong with the bill itself; he just didn’t want President Biden to win a victory he hadn’t done or didn’t want to achieve himself.

Furthermore, Trump’s presidency has probably put a worthy final nail in the coffin of the GOP’s long-cultivated image as a party of financial excellence. Even before the pandemic, Trump amassed so much federal debt that was largely driven by his party’s giant 2017 tax cuts that mostly benefited the wealthy. And one of Trump’s last acts as president (aside from inciting an uprising against Congress) was his failed effort to send $ 2000 stimulus checks to every American.

The deficit scorery has long been the GOP’s most powerful weapon against Democratic goals. This is part of why Bill Clinton actually balanced the federal budget, and why Barack Obama’s stimulus in 2009 during the Great Recession was smaller than it should have been. But given their own role in Trump’s recent history that goes into the budget, congressional Republicans of this era don’t reasonably make an argument that Democrats are spending too much money to fix roads, bridges, and airports. In fact, they barely bothered. He may be angry now, but Trump did the most important job in any infrastructure project: He laid the foundation.

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