Senate Republicans label Biden infrastructure plan a ‘slush fund’

Senate Republicans have reportedly sent around a memo calling President Biden’s ambitious infrastructure package a “slush fund,” ahead of a bipartisan meeting with the president at the White House on Monday.

Politico reports that the memo sent by the Senate Republican Conference to all GOP communications staffs blasts the White House for referring to the infrastructure proposal as a “jobs plan” and instead called it a “partisan plan to kill jobs and create slush funds on the taxpayer dime.”

“Biden’s Partisan, Job-Crushing Slush Fund spends just 5% of the total $2.7 trillion on roads and bridges,” the lawmakers said in their memo, according to Politico.

“The rest is: a wish list of non-infrastructure spending on failed Obama policies; a dog’s breakfast of slush funds for Democrats’ pet projects without any accountability or transparency; expensive green energy mandates on Americans; a ban on the right to work; and a flurry of tax hikes that will to drive companies out of the U.S. and give China and Russia a say in the United States’ tax laws. As a result, the plan will eliminate at least 1 million jobs,” they added.

The Republican lawmakers meeting at the White House on Monday include Sens. Roger Wicker (Miss.) and Deb Fischer (Neb.) along with Reps. Garret Graves (La.) and Don Young (Alaska). The Democratic lawmakers who will attend the meeting include Sens. Maria Cantwell (Wash.) and Alex Padilla (Calif.) and Reps. Donald Payne Jr. (N.J.) and David Price (N.C.).

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said on Sunday that Biden would have an ‘open mind’ to making changes to the current bill.

“I think the president will have an open mind” toward changes going into his meetings with lawmakers, Buttigieg said while appearing on “Fox News Sunday.” “Of course, a plan gets better when you get input, from our party, from their party.”

Biden has said that he would like to have the infrastructure package passed by July 4.