President Joe Biden on Monday delivered remarks in Baltimore, Maryland, the place he touted a tunnel challenge being addressed with funds from the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Funding and Jobs Act he signed in 2021. On the identical time, he continues to refuse spending reduce negotiations with Republican lawmakers over the $31.3 trillion debt ceiling breached on January 19, although he has admitted Washington politicians have to rein within the nationwide debt.
Biden visited Baltimore to debate a renovation to the Baltimore-Patomic Tunnel, a rail tunnel he claimed to have handed by means of “a thousand instances” as an Amtrak passenger.
Ulysses S. Grant was President when the Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel opened.
150 years later, the tunnel is the biggest bottleneck for commuter passengers between DC and NJ.
President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Regulation will substitute the tunnel.
— Herbie Ziskend (@HerbieZiskend46) January 29, 2023
“However people look, I made a thousand journeys by means of this tunnel, so I’ve been by means of this tunnel a thousand instances,” mentioned Biden. “However when people discuss how unhealthy the Baltimore tunnel wants an improve, you don’t want me to let you know.”
“I additionally know that it’s not simply Amtrak; I understand how essential this tunnel is to the pc rail – pc rail, commuter rail – and MARC rail backwards and forwards to Washington,” he added.
The White Home estimates the challenge will run $6 billion, and as much as $4.7 billion of the price might be coated by the infrastructure invoice.
“This legislation is probably the most important funding in American roads and bridges because the interstate freeway system, and it’s probably the most important funding within the rail on America since Amtrak was created 50 years in the past,” Biden asserted.
twenty first century transit infrastructure is a recreation changer for America. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Regulation makes the biggest funding in rail transit because the creation of Amtrak.
— Costa Samaras (@CostaSamaras46) January 30, 2023
The “bipartisan infrastructure invoice,” which yielded no conservative victories however many leftist spending initiatives, was signed into legislation in November 2021, months after he signed the large $1.7 trillion American Rescue Plan, a coronavirus aid package deal.
As Breitbart Information reported after the passage of the invoice, “Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) … famous that solely $110 billion of the $1.2 trillion in spending would fund roads, bridges, and different tasks that almost all Individuals would take into account infrastructure.”
“The RSC wrote that it will embody $66 billion in funding for Amtrak whereas stopping any taxpayer accountability for the railway service,” added Breitbart Information’s Sean Moran.
Earlier this month, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen introduced that america had hit its 31.3 trillion debt ceiling, and the Division of the Treasury estimated it may flip to “extraordinary measures” till June to maintain the U.S. from defaulting on its runaway debt.
Biden’s press secretary, Karine Jean Pierre, has acknowledged that the president believes the ceiling needs to be raised “with out circumstances,” and the White Home has made clear the president doesn’t intend to barter with Republicans, who’re in search of cuts to offset the debt in trade for elevating the ceiling.
Nevertheless, Biden, on the heels of his and the final Democrat-controlled Congress’s large spending spree, famous just a few weeks in the past whereas talking to mayors from across the nation within the East Room of the White Home that Washington, DC, politicians “have to concentrate on ensuring we don’t accumulate extra debt.” He then floated the concept of tax hikes whereas seemingly trying to amplify the narrative that Republicans search spending cuts on Social Safety and Medicare particularly.
Home Speaker Kevin McCarthy reportedly assured Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) final week that there can be no cuts to Social Safety and Medicare. Former President Donald Trump has sternly warned Republicans in opposition to cuts to both program to “assist pay for Joe Biden’s reckless spending spree.” As a substitute, he proposed reducing “a whole bunch of billions of taxpayer {dollars} going to deprave overseas international locations,” reducing “the mass releases of unlawful aliens which can be depleting our social security internet and destroying our nation,” ending radical gender packages within the army, and nixing reckless funding on “local weather extremism.”
“Minimize waste, fraud, and abuse in all places that we will discover it, and there’s loads of it, however don’t reduce the advantages our seniors labored for and paid for his or her total lives. Save social safety, don’t destroy it,” he cautioned.
