MORGANTOWN – Sen. Shelley Moore Capito spoke briefly with members of the West Virginia press Thursday before heading to the White House for a negotiation session with President Biden on the competing infrastructure proposals.
Capito, R-W.Va., reiterated the GOP stance that they are focused on traditional infrastructure: roads, bridges, water, sewer, broadband, transit, air transportation. Their proposal totals $568 billion compared to Biden’s $2.3 trillion.
“He has a lot of social infrastructure in his bill, and I think those are worthy things to discuss in another forum in another way,” she said.
Biden has set a May 31 deadline for “real progress” and Capito said, “I think we can reach a bipartisan agreement on these things with reasonable payf-ors that don’t involve raising taxes.”
Those pay-fors include the gas tax and possible highway user fees or a vehicle miles traveled tax and recapturing unspent COVID money for localities to spend on infrastructure.
they have the reconciliation option
Capito also commented on the Senate version of the For the People Act, S1, which was reviewed in the Senate Rule Commitee earlier this week and deadlocked in a tie vote. Democrats can still move it to the floor with a simple majority vote, with Vice President Harris breaking the tie.
“Basically, I vehemently oppose this bill,” Capito said. It’s a a federal power grab of state responsibilities. It’s up to the states to make sure voting is open fair, correctly counted and as many people who can vote can vote.
S1, she said allows ballot harvesting – where someone gathers other peoples’ ballots and submits them on their behalf. “I think that opens up fraud.”
It also makes the Federal Election Commission partisan. It’s a reaction to a problem that doesn’t exist, she said. In COVID 2020, 17 million more voted than in 2016. “Our states adapted in that time frame” without federal intervention.
Capito fielded a question about the return of earmarks – officially called targeted funding through “Congressionally Directed Spending.”
Huge wastes of money like the Alaskan Bridge to Nowhere led to the abolition of earmarks back in 2010-11. Capito said that West Virginians understand they can be useful if done transparently and in good faith. “We can really solve a lot of local problems a lot better than that locality having to write for a grant in Washington, D.C. … Obviously it was an abused practice.”
She and her West Virginia colleague Sen. Joe Manchin both agree that the whole process will have to be done transparently. Manchin has a requests link on his website and Capito said she will be publishing all requests on hers.
Answering another question, Capito followed up on her Wednesday comments about the systemic failures at eh Clarksburg VA hospital that allowed Reta Mays to murder eight veterans. On Wednesday she said, “The findings show a collapse of administrative and clinical responsibility that has led to unimaginable consequences, which makes it clear that updated policy and procedure is desperately needed.”
She added on Thursday, “I think we really need to clean house at the VA. … This is a historic problem with the VA. …Maybe it is time to really do a total overhaul.”
Following the meeting with Biden – where Capiton was joined by other ranking Republicans from various committees – Capito spoke with FOX News about how it went and shared the video of that segment.
“I think we accomplished a lot,” she said. The GOP explained its concept of traditional infrastructure. “He was very open to suggestions, as were we. … It’s a good jump start, I think.”
They made some initial, incremental progress and will come will come back to Biden with another offer, she said.
There are worries Biden and the Senate Democrats will still push their agenda by again using reconciliation to step over GOP objections. Capito offered hope. “I think we all felt he was an honest broker here. … We are still in motion here and that’s the good news.”
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