Dem Sen. Shaheen: Reconciliation Package Shouldn’t Stop Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal

On Monday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) stated that while she supports a larger budget reconciliation package, “we need to do everything we can” to pass the bipartisan infrastructure deal and the reconciliation package shouldn’t “stop an infrastructure package that already has a framework that I hope can move forward.”

Shaheen said, “I appreciated the president’s clarification that he issued over the weekend. I think those of us who worked on this package very much appreciated his taking the time to try and make clear that he supports both packages and he hopes both will go forward, but that they are not linked.”

Shaheen continued that the bipartisan infrastructure deal is “an important package, and we need to do everything we can to encourage support for it and to try and keep it moving.”

She added, “I certainly support the second package, but we don’t know what’s in that yet, and that’s one of the challenges. We know that the Budget Committee in the Senate is working on a package. We’ve seen what Sen. Sanders has issued. That hasn’t gone through the Budget Committee yet. So, we don’t have a second package which includes what President Biden has called the families plan that would invest in childcare and family medical leave and education and so many home and community-based services, so many of the things that we know we also need in this country. But I’m going to continue to work on that. I hope we can get that done. But I don’t think that should stop an infrastructure package that already has a framework that I hope can move forward.”

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