“Ensuring a bicameral reconciliation process, with true input from the House prior to the passage of the bipartisan infrastructure legislation, is essential to advancing critical Democratic priorities on infrastructure and so much more,” wrote Representative Peter A. DeFazio of Oregon, the chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and a scathing critic of the bipartisan deal.
Progressive groups have also pushed ads targeting the nine Democrats as obstructing the Biden administration’s agenda. No Labels, a centrist political organization, called the group “the unbreakable nine” in a dramatic montage comparing them to figures like Abraham Lincoln and a fictional senator from the film “Bulworth,” in which a suicidal politician decides to tell the truth.
While some Republicans are expected to support the bipartisan infrastructure bill, they are adamantly opposed to the budget blueprint, citing concerns about its size, proposed tax increases and the possibility that increased spending will worsen inflation.
“Don’t be surprised, when you write a bill that you know no Republican will vote for it, that none do,” Representative Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma, said at a hearing on Monday. “Frankly, that’s why you’ve linked the infrastructure bill and this bill together, because you’re beating your own members into submission.”
Referring to the $1 trillion infrastructure bill, he added: “If you put it on the floor, it would pass immediately, but you’ve chosen to use it as a weapon against your own members.”
Also on Monday, White House economists sought to push back against Republican warnings about inflation, writing in a blog post that Mr. Biden’s plans to spend trillions on roads, child care, a transition to low-carbon energy and a variety of other economic initiatives would have “little, if any, effect” on inflation in the months to come.
Luke Broadwater and Jonathan Weisman contributed reporting.
