The House comes through, barely: Progressive Democrats almost stop progress on crucial bipartisan infrastructure bill

In August, every Senate Democrat and 38% of Senate Republicans, cheered on by President Biden, passed a truly bipartisan infrastructure bill, formally the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, with 69 senators joining to invest in roads and bridges and transit.

Three months later, and only after a voter backlash at the polls, did fractious House Democrats manage to approve the exact same legislation. However here, the opposition was bipartisan, with the hardest core, farthest left progressive Dems siding with almost every Republican. Shamefully, just 6% of the House GOP, a scant 13 members, did the right thing and we salute them, particularly their largest bloc, the four from New York: Nicole Malliotakis, Andrew Garbarino, John Katko and Tom Reed.

New Yorkers also stood out on the wrong side, with two Bronxites whose borough’s infrastructure needs tremendous work, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman, spitefully saying no because they wanted to tie their votes to Biden’s social spending plan, which is still being trimmed down in the Senate. The adamant opposition from them and their ideological allies delayed the package for months and it would have failed Friday night without the sensible Republicans. They definitely haven’t learned anything from last week’s poor showing by Democrats with voters.

Now that it’s becoming law, it’s debatable if the price tag is really $1.2 trillion, since $650 billion is a continuation of existing programs. But there is $550 billion in new spending over five years. The $39 billion for transit should have been more, but the MTA sees $10 billion coming, even though there’s nothing for operations. The $66 billion heading to Amtrak has us nervous, because the railway has a very poor track record of building smartly or efficiently. The billions for the Northeast Corridor upgrades should be given to the state-run commuter lines that carry 95% of the NEC passengers.

Even though rail is a microscopic presence in most states, Amtrak does specialize in sweet-talking senators. And Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is no exception. Schumer should choose New York over Amtrak.