Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn, America’s second most powerful senator, doubts that Congress will make progress on an infrastructure package this year.
“I think it’s gonna be hard, because we have so many other things to do and we don’t have much time,” Cornyn, the majority whip, told reporters Tuesday, according to Politico.
President Donald Trump pitched a plan earlier in February that is supposed to generate $1.5 trillion of total investment in roads, bridges, waterways, electrical grids and other projects.
The infrastructure buildup, one of Trump’s key campaign promises, continues to have bipartisan support, but the details of the plan threaten to cause a tough congressional fight. One of the toughest questions is where to find $200 billion for the federal government’s share of infrastructure in the budget.
“This is the start of a negotiation — bicameral, bipartisan negotiation — to find the best solution for infrastructure in the U.S.,” a White House official told reporters Feb. 20.
Cornyn expressed the same skepticism earlier Tuesday in an interview with Bloomberg News. “I certainly would be happy if we could, but we’ve got a lot of things to do, that being one of them, and I don’t know if we will have time to get to that,” Cornyn said.
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House Freedom Caucus chair Mark Meadows of North Carolina quipped that the Senate should pick up the pace. “They may need to get in two or three naps between now and then,” Meadows told Bloomberg.
“Going home at this point and saying there is not enough time between now and November to do an infrastructure bill may not be the best message,” Meadows said.
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