President Trump’s budget director placed blame on Democrats for the lack of movement on a bipartisan infrastructure package, saying that the administration is opposed to Democrat-backed tax hikes or additional debt to pay for legislation.
Russ Vought, the acting director of Trump’s Office of Management and Budget, said on Wednesday that Republicans want to cut federal government spending to pay for infrastructure, while Democrats want to roll back Trump’s 2017 tax cut.
“I think your question reveals the problem with where we are on infrastructure, which is that we want to pay for it by providing spending cuts and reforms,” Vought said in response to a question from Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna during a hearing on the administration’s fiscal year 2021 budget proposal.
“You all [Democrats] — every time we try to have a conversation about infrastructure, the expectation is we’re going to roll back the president’s tax cut. We’re not going to. We’re not going to have anything that raises taxes on this,” Vought added.
Khanna, who represents a large section of Silicon Valley, pushed back, saying that Trump’s 2017 tax cuts weren’t fully paid for in advance, and therefore, Trump could commit to doing an infrastructure bill without necessarily balancing the budget beforehand as well.
Vought responded, saying infrastructure is a priority for Trump, as represented by the trillion-dollar infrastructure package in his budget from earlier this week.
“Infrastructure has been something that’s been paid for. But we are providing $4.4 [trillion] in spending reductions and deficit reductions that could be used for potential pay-fors,” Vought said.
Democrats have been vehemently opposed to Trump’s new budget proposal and don’t support it as a mechanism to pay for infrastructure.
House Democrats unveiled an infrastructure plan last month, but left out a financing mechanism, saying that they would offer revenue proposals when the Trump administration agreed to the proposal.
