This is the first I’ve heard of this. But this jumped out at me in an article on the CNN website about the Stimulus Bill in the senate …
The sources say Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, wants a “smaller, narrower” bill. Another group of Republicans including Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine is working to craft a larger package that would include more infrastructure spending.
Generally, the sources say, the party is looking for more concessions from the White House on spending.
This is pretty bare on details. But what that seems to say is that there are a number of Republicans who want a bill with a larger total price tag, with the extra spending weighted toward infrastructure spending (presumably transportation infrastructure spending since that’s usually what people are talking about when they use that shorthand.) In other words, Obama +, with the plus being mainly transportation infrastructure.
(Of course, maybe it’s just loose reporting and they really mean a bigger price tag with 2/3 tax cuts and 1/3 roads. Who knows?)
I’d put this squarely in the ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’ category. And it would not match up very well with the spending policies Sen. McCain was campaigning on last Fall. But if something like this were true, I would think you’d get a significant number of Democrats interested in moving in that direction.
Of course, very big ‘if’. But we’ll see.
