Rob Portman: “I appreciated the comments from my colleague from Connecticut. And he talked about both the bipartisan infrastructure…”

“I appreciated the comments from my colleague from Connecticut. And he talked about both the bipartisan infrastructure bill that is on the floor of the Senate and will be voted on tomorrow morning, and he also talked about the budget proposal that is also going to be considered by the Senate this week. I want to start by just being sure that those two are distinguished because there is a big contrast between them. The bipartisan infrastructure package, I believe, is a sensible approach to restoring our Nation's infrastructure, as we will talk about in a moment. And that legislation, again, is meant to be voted on tomorrow morning. The other proposal is the $3.5 trillion, or more, budget resolution that will be partisan--not bipartisan--that is being proposed by the Democrats, which is a tax-and-spending extravaganza. And my concern is, not only does it spend a lot of money we don't have--and not on long-term assets, like infrastructure, but on social programs--but, also, it raises taxes substantially. In fact, it raises taxes more than taxes were cut back in 2017, which created such a strong economy going into the pandemic. And I really do worry about what is going to happen to our country should we do that. The bipartisan infrastructure package has no tax increases. The $3.5 trillion budget resolution has these huge new taxes.…”