Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez insisted on Sunday that House Democrats would not approve the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure deal unless the Senate also passes the party’s overall $3.5 trillion spending plan.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) linked the fates of the two pieces of legislation last month when she said the House would not take up the infrastructure bill unless the proposed spending measure were passed by reconciliation — a procedural tactic that would allow the Democrats to pass the measure in the 50-50 Senate by a simple majority and bypass Republicans.
Ocasio-Cortez (D-Bronx/Queens) said House Democrats must back that proposal.
“We have to hold on to that bargain,” AOC (pictured above) said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “If there is not a reconciliation bill in the House, and if the Senate does not pass the reconciliation bill, we will uphold our end of the bargain and not pass the bipartisan bill until we get all of these investments in.”
She said some of the investments in the bipartisan infrastructure deal, a priority for the Biden White House, were not all “Candyland,” adding that some of the proposed ways to pay for them were “alarming.”
“We need to see the language,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “For example, some of the language around privatizing public infrastructure, putting toll roads, leasing public infrastructure to private entities are very concerning and should be concerning to every American.
“So we really need to see that language and see what’s put in there when it reaches the House. ‘Bipartisan’ doesn’t always mean that it’s in the interest of the public good. Frankly, sometimes there’s a lot of corporate lobbyists’ giveaways in some of these bills.”
The $3.5 trillion spending plan is already unpopular with Republicans. The controversial move to combine both initiatives could derail the entire negotiation process.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), a centrist crucial to the bipartisan deal’s passage, told CBS’s “Face the Nation” that the two measures need not be considered together.
“I’ve always believed that everything should rise or fall on its own merits,” he said. “I would never ever ever try to advise Speaker Pelosi on how she runs the House. I think she does a marvelous job and she’ll do what she thinks is best for the House, but the bottom line is, we’ve got a bill . . . it should fall or rise on its own.”
The Senate continued debating the infrastructure measure on Sunday — and later in the evening, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced that its more than 2,000 pages of text had finally been completed after a slew of last-minute additions and edits.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), speaking on CNN earlier in the day, predicted enough Republicans would support the bipartisan bill to pass the Senate this week.
“We really are just about finished,” she said, adding that “large parts of the text have been shared with Senate offices.”
“This bill is good for America,” she added. “Every senator can look at bridges and roads, the need for more broadband, waterways in their states, seaports, airports and see the benefits, the very concrete benefits — no pun intended — of this legislation.”