Senate Blocks $1.2 Trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill

The Senate blocked the legislative vehicle for the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill on Wednesday.

The Senate blocked H.R. 3684, the legislative vehicle for the bipartisan infrastructure bill, with 49 votes in favor of advancing it, and 51 against.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) held the vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill even though it appeared that not enough Senate Republicans would support the measure.

Senate Democrats that continue to negotiate the bipartisan deal, such as Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), Jon Tester (D-MT), and Joe Manchin (D-WV), voted to advance the bill. Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Rob Portman (R-OH), who are involved in the negotiations, voted against advancing the legislative vehicle.

Many Senate Republicans involved with the bipartisan infrastructure negotiations contended that they needed more time to negotiate the finer points of the legislation.

Senate Republicans, congressional Democrats, and President Joe Biden continue to negotiate on the details of the roughly $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, even though there is no legislative text for the bill.

The bipartisan infrastructure bill’s failure follows Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), along with Sens. Rick Scott (R-FL), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Mike Lee (R-UT), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Rand Paul (R-KY), Mike Braun (R-IN), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), and Bill Hagerty (R-TN) leading a statement urging the bill’s defeat. The Senate conservatives said in a statement last week that by supporting the bipartisan infrastructure framework, they would only enable Democrats to pass their gargantuan $3.5 trillion “infrastructure bill.”

In an interview with Breitbart News this week, Johnson contended that Senate Republicans that continued to negotiate with Democrats on the infrastructure bill would only be “complicit” in enabling the Democrats’ leftist agenda and allowing for even more inflation.

Johnson told Breitbart News that if Republicans are “cooperative and complicit” with the $1 trillion bipartisan bill, the Democrat bill is “just going to be backfilled with more long-term entitlements, welfare, liberal, radical wishlist spending proposals. And, so as we wrote in our press release, joining the Democrats in this bipartisan infrastructure bill enables the reckless tax and spending spree on party Democrats. So, I don’t understand why any Republican would want to be complicit in doing that.”

The Club for Growth sent out a letter to Republican lawmakers, saying that Senate Republicans that support the bipartisan bill would only enable the “socialist” multi-trillion-dollar reconciliation bill.

David McIntosh, the president of the Club for Growth, said in a statement Wednesday, “Any Senator that supports the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal is also explicitly supporting the radical socialist reconciliation bill and $4.7 trillion in total spending.”

He added, “This deal is a gateway drug that will lead to trillions in unnecessary spending and an increase in our debt limit which we can’t afford and don’t need.”

Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.