The $1 trillion infrastructure bill approved by the Senate on Tuesday should have focused on issues that ''could unite everybody,'' but instead adds a mountain of debt over the next 10 years, says Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.
''We just went through a pandemic ... and in this pandemic, we had to spend money we didn't have because frankly, there's no country in the world that didn't, and no country in the world had a rainy-day fund for a global pandemic,'' Rubio said Tuesday on Newsmax's ''Eric Bolling: The Balance.''
''So we had to do that, and we understand that. So I think now, as we spend money moving forward, we have to be cognizant of the fact that we are not today where we were three or four years ago. We already have an existing mountain of debt created by this pandemic. We have to have economic growth to get out of it.
''And so the problem with this bill is, you have [a] $350 billion net add to the debt over the next 10 years. I think it should have been reduced by that amount, and it should have really focused on the things that could unite everybody and not add some of these other things in it.''
The Senate voted 69-30 to approve the bill. Even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell voted yes.
''Today, we proved that democracy can still work,'' President Joe Biden declared at the White House.
''We can still come together to do big things, important things, for the American people,'' the president said.
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act started with a group of 10 senators who seized on Biden's campaign promise to draft a scaled-down version of his initial $2.3 trillion proposal, one that could appeal more broadly to both parties in the narrowly divided Congress, especially the 50-50 Senate.
It swelled to a 2,700-page bill backed by the president as well as business, labor and farm interests. Over time, it drew an expansive alliance of senators and a bipartisan group in the House.
Rubio said the U.S. had to deficit-spend during the pandemic.
''This is different. This is actually borrowing and spending the money above and beyond what we already did over the last two years because we had to,'' he said.
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Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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