Photo from Bangor Daily News
When asked by a reporter on his latest presentation on the American Jobs Plan if he will fail at bipartisanship if the infrastructure bill will pass with only Democratic votes like the American Rescue Plan, President Biden responded:
"Look what I said was I would try to work with my friends on the other side...but the last plan I laid out what was available what I was suggesting and how I'd deal with it and a bipartisan group came to see me and then the Republican group came to see me. And they started off at $600 billion and that was it. If they came forward with a plan that did the bulk of it was a billion (he meant trillion) three or four, two or three, that allowed me to have pieces of all that was in there I would have, I would have been prepared to compromise. But they didn't. They didn't move an inch, not an inch..."
That comment apparently struck a nerve with Republican Maine Senator Susan Collins and the other nine Republicans (Shelly Moore Capito, Lisa Murkowski, Bill Cassidy, Mitt Romney, Rob Portman, Todd Young, Jerry Moran, Mike Rounds, and Thom Tillis) who met with Biden with their smaller (by over two-thirds) $600 billion versions of the American Rescue Plan.
They issued a joint statement which read:
https://twitter.com/AndrewSolender/status/1379949458197217286
The ten Republicans are right in their statement that "The Administration roundly dismissed our effort as wholly inadequate..."
It was and the Republicans made no major attempt to even meet the Administration halfway.
How do we know this?
Remember the vote on amendments for the American Rescue Plan.
Susan Collins and ten other Republicans offered an alternative American Rescue Plan that cost $650 billion that left out many priorities such as state and local aid.
President Biden was right.
They did not move one inch.
Do not believe the crocodile tears coming from these ten Republicans who say President Biden is not serious about bipartisan negotiations.
Bipartisan compromise is not agreeing to the opposition's low ball numbers and calling that bipartisanship.
Republicans are the ones that need to show they are serious about bipartisanship.
Some are meeting with President Biden to discuss the Biden/Harris American Rescue Plan tomorrow.
A good start for the former members of the Party of Lincoln would be to stop the fake whining and actually propose solutions that both sides find credible to negotiate on.
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