Sen. John Barasso (R-Wyo.) said President Biden must do more to reassure Republicans that the bipartisan agreement on infrastructure spending recently struck by the White House and lawmakers will not be linked to any additional spending.
“I talked to a number of members of the bipartisan group. They are all reluctant to move forward. They’re gonna need more assurances from the president that there is no link between this bipartisan bill and the bill that the Democrats want to do,” Barasso said.
Barasso said if Democrats try and pass a larger bill through reconciliation they will be doing so as “a high wire act with no safety net.”
Biden said on Thursday that he would not sign a bipartisan deal on infrastructure unless a larger reconciliation deal was passed. On Saturday, he walked those comments back.
“At a press conference after announcing the bipartisan agreement, I indicated that I would refuse to sign the infrastructure bill if it was sent to me without my Families Plan and other priorities, including clean energy,” Biden said in a statement. “That statement understandably upset some Republicans, who do not see the two plans as linked; they are hoping to defeat my Families Plan—and do not want their support for the infrastructure plan to be seen as aiding passage of the Families Plan.”
Several GOP senators making the Sunday morning talk show rounds, including Sens. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) indicated that they accepted Biden’s clarification.
Barasso called the Democrats larger agenda for spending “basically a freight train heading toward socialism.”