Sen. Mitch McConnell Promises A ‘Hell Of A Fight’ Over Democrats’ Massive Infrastructure Bill

by Gabrielle GuzJuly 8, 2021, 11:16 pmDaily Digest, News, News Feed >

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell warned Democrats on Tuesday that they are in for a “hell of a fight” if they continue to pursue reconciliation to pass President Joe Biden’s multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure passage.

McConnell’s comments come during a two-week break in the Senate in honor of July 4. He anticipates that Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-New York) will return following the recess with intentions to pass another smaller bipartisan infrastructure plan and a massive budget resolution with Democrats only.

Democrats are still trying to determine the bottom-line cost of the bill. Once they figure out that number, only then can they decide on a budget resolution that could help them achieve a reconciliation bill to bypass the GOP filibuster in the Senate.

“This is not going to be done on a bipartisan basis,” McConnel told the Hill on Tuesday. “This is going to be a hell of a fight over what this country ought to look like in the future and it’s going to unfold here in the next few weeks. I don’t think we’ve had a bigger difference of opinion between the two parties.”

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Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vermont) has been put in charge to lead Democrats on the Senate Budget Committee during the break to agree on a cost for the bill. While Sanders has supported a number as high as $6 trillion, the more moderate Democrats, like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia), though he is not on the panel, suggest that $2 trillion would be high enough.

Schumer would need all of his 50 members from his party to agree on budget resolution and infrastructure bill.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arizona) has been one of the other vocal critics of the Democrats-only infrastructure bill.

He wrote in a tweet on Thursday: “Schumer, Pelosi, and the Biden administration are working behind closed doors right now to include mass amnesty in their reconciliation bill. The border crisis is already a disaster—this will make it much worse.”