Sen. Cruz: Democrats’ Infrastructure Bill is a Gateway Drug to More Reckless Spending
WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) today issued the following statement after voting against Democrats' wasteful infrastructure bill:
"Too many Republicans just enabled Democrats' efforts to claim bipartisanship, spend over a trillion dollars, and then ram through their $3.5 trillion liberal wish list of crushing taxes and radical spending. The $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that passed today contained only about $100 billion for roads and bridges. As I've said before, if the Democrats wanted to pass a bill just to fix and expand our roads and bridges, they could have done it with near-unanimous support.
"My colleagues have tried to claim this bill is paid for, but it's not. Even if you count the gimmicks and fake offsets, this bill will increase the deficit by over a quarter of a trillion dollars. If, like me, you don't trust the Washington Swamp's funny math, we're about to plunge ourselves even further into debt. America is already $28.6 trillion in debt, and it's set to skyrocket even higher.
"I still fought hard to improve this bill, and I'm proud to have unanimously passed an amendment with Sen. Warnock to designate portions of Interstate 14 as a future addition to the interstate highway system. This will allow Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia to take the first steps to upgrade those roads -- helping produce jobs in all five states and enhancing the ability of our military bases to transport vital equipment-and critically, my amendment costs nothing additional for the American taxpayers. However, even with this important win for Texas, I could not in good conscience vote for a $1.2 trillion bill that isn't paid for, contains so many wasteful pet projects, and paves the way for trillions of dollars in partisan tax hikes and wasteful spending.
"This bill will also devastate the cryptocurrency industry by imposing crushing regulations. I tried to offer multiple amendments to improve this provision. When those were rejected, I fought to strike the provision altogether, so we could hold public hearings and thoughtfully consider the consequences of this section through regular order. That effort was blocked too. You can barely find five senators who understand anything about cryptocurrency, but apparently, that won't stop us from regulating it to death and driving this promising industry overseas.
"Now the Democrats have started the process to jam through their massive $3.5 trillion tax-and-spend bill. which means we're looking at almost $5 trillion in spending just on these two latest bills. That's on top of over $3 trillion in wasteful spending Congress has already passed in the past eight months. That's a whopping near-$8 trillion -- which is almost double what America spent to win World War II. This free-for-all spending is reckless, irresponsible, and unsustainable.
"Let's take a look at what the Democrats are gearing up to pass this fall: the Bernie Budget Resolution to put the United States on the path toward the Biden Green New Deal, including proposals to advance ‘environmental justice' and impose massive new fees on industries they don't like. It will include trying to jam through amnesty and citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants. Democrats are also set to use this process to hike taxes to the tune of trillions of dollars. That means individual taxes are going way up. Corporate taxes are going up. Small business taxes are going up. Capital gains taxes are going up. It means the death tax is going up.
"Worst of all, their tax-and-spend mania has already caused inflation to rear its ugly head and prices to rise significantly. As far too many people already know, all across Texas and across the country, it's getting more expensive to cool your home, to fill up your car, to buy groceries, to buy lumber, or to buy a new home. The Biden Inflation is crushing middle-class Americans, and is especially painful for seniors on a fixed income. The last year-and-a-half has been enormously difficult for hard-working Texans and all Americans. They deserve better than this."
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