Source: United States Senator for West Virginia Shelley Moore Capito
To watch the interview, click here or the image above.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, yesterday joined PBS NewsHour to discuss the latest on various infrastructure and spending proposals in Congress.
HIGHLIGHTS:
ON BIPARTISAN GROUP/INFRASTRUCTURE LATEST: “I think that the efforts that the bipartisan group has put forward has been very straightforward and very honest, very narrow in terms of physical infrastructure, much like the package that I was negotiating, with more dollars into it. I do expect that, early next week, hopefully as soon as Monday, that they will have actual bill text, so we would know what we would be voting on. It may take a couple of days to work the through the system, and maybe even another week. But, I do think that they are going to be able to lay the last issues to rest and bring forward a bill. And then we can make the judgments on it when we see it.”
ON WAYS TO PAY FOR INFRASTRUCTURE PACKAGE: “The base of what goes forward in paying for any kind of infrastructure is the gas tax. But, we know that falls short of meeting the demands of where we are. So, I think that this group has worked — as I did, has worked with the White House to get the White House to reprogram some COVID dollars, a lot of COVID dollars that are either going unspent or found that they really, since we’re coming out of this pandemic, are not going to be able to use in the right times…We as Republicans, did not want to touch the 2017 tax cuts, because we think they have been very successful in spurring the economy. The president himself did not want to ask users of electric vehicles to pay into any kind of user fee. They use the roads. They don’t pay. So we had a bit of a disconnect there. I think both sides are trying to get to reasonable pay-fors. But I expect, in the end, it’s going to be tough to meet all the challenges of the pay-for. I guess the question will be, is enough of it paid for, and will the economic growth take care of the shortfall? And people are going to have to answer that for themselves.”
ON RECKLESS SPENDING: “What I disagree with on where the Democrats are going, they have set an amount. They have said, OK, we’re going to spend $3.5 trillion. And then they’re filling up the buckets. Shouldn’t we be looking at the needs, and then look at what the cost is? And so I think if we’re going to make consequential, huge social reform all across this country, we should be doing that together. And it won’t be that. It will be singularly done. This was a huge tax increase on the American public. And it’s also a lot of reckless spending going along with it.”
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