South Carolina’s liar Rep. Nancy Mace showed up at Newsmax Tuesday to blame President Joe Biden for the collapse of the Francis Scott Key bridge after a ship strike on a major pier early this morning in Maryland.
First came the stunningly dumb intro from host Rob Astorino about seeing rust under bridges: "I'm sure you'll hear the Democrats have a press release and conference somewhere today or tomorrow about the need for a trillion-dollar infrastructure program after all the other ones. It seems like we do have these infrastructure bills, lots of money in it. I mean, I've been under bridges. They're horrible to look at. You look and you see rust, if you drive over bridges, you see things you are like, am I going to make it over this? The bridges are definitely old. The roads are old. But why, after all these bills, after all the money, do we still have really old bridges and really old roads?"
To which nonsense Mace responded, as reported by David Edwards at Raw Story:
Mace insisted that the infrastructure funds were not going to roads and bridges.
"Because we're not spending it on roads and bridges," she asserted without citing any evidence. "Look at the one point two trillion dollar infrastructure bill that was done a couple years ago that the left hails as this massive success, but it was mostly Green New Deal."
"Mostly in that bill, one hundred and ten billion went to surface transportation, which is roads and bridges," Mace said. "And of that one hundred and ten billion, 70 billion went to public transportation, leaving only 40 billion for traditional roads and bridges."
Mace voted against the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in late 2021, condemning it as a “fiasco” and a “socialist wish list.” As with so many other Republicans who voted against the IIJA have done, however, she had nothing but praise last June for a South Carolina project funded with $26 million from the act—a regional transit hub designed to help the Charleston Area Regional Transportation Authority transition to a fully electric bus fleet.
Sometimes you have to wonder just how many elected Republicans being sworn into office simultaneously whisper a Hypocritic Oath under their breath.
In case you’d like to know what’s in the IIJA, here’s the White House fact sheet. Among other things (my boldface):
The bill includes a total of $40 billion of new funding for bridge repair, replacement, and rehabilitation, which is the single largest dedicated bridge investment since the construction of the interstate highway system. The bill also includes around $16 billion for major projects that are too large or complex for traditional funding programs but will deliver significant economic benefits to communities.
Is this enough to fix or replace all 45,000 U.S. bridges judged to be at risk and the 173,000 miles of bad roads? No. Just as the amount of money being provided for lead pipe replacement—$15 billion in the IIJA and $15 billion in the Inflation Reduction Act—isn’t enough to do all that is needed, including at 400,000 U.S. public schools. Of course, Nancy Mace is also one of the unanimous Republicans who voted against the IRA.
Three more examples of IIJA funding taken from the fact sheet:
America’s transit infrastructure is inadequate – with a multibillion-dollar repair backlog, representing more than 24,000 buses, 5,000 rail cars, 200 stations, and thousands of miles of track, signals, and power systems in need of replacement. The legislation includes $39 billion of new investment to modernize transit, and improve accessibility for the elderly and people with disabilities. That is in addition to continuing the existing transit programs for five years as part of surface transportation reauthorization. In total, the new investments and reauthorization provide $89.9 billion in guaranteed funding for public transit over the next five years. This is the largest Federal investment in public transit in history, and devotes a larger share of funds from surface transportation reauthorization to transit in the history of the programs. It will repair and upgrade aging infrastructure, modernize bus and rail fleets, make stations accessible to all users through a new program with $1.75 billion in dedicated funding, and bring transit service to new communities with an additional $8 billion for Capital Investment Grants. It will replace thousands of transit vehicles, including buses, with clean, zero emission vehicles through an additional $5.75 billion, of which 5 percent is dedicated to training the transit workforce to maintain and operate these vehicles. And, it will benefit communities of color since these households are twice as likely to take public transportation and many of these communities lack sufficient public transit options. [...]
Too often, past transportation investments divided communities – like the Claiborne Expressway in New Orleans or I-81 in Syracuse – or it left out the people most in need of affordable transportation options. In particular, significant portions of the interstate highway system were built through Black neighborhoods. The legislation creates a first-ever program to reconnect communities divided by transportation infrastructure. The program will fund planning, design, demolition, and reconstruction of street grids, parks, or other infrastructure through $1 billion of dedicated funding in addition to historic levels of major projects funding, for which these investments could also qualify. [...]
The United States built modern aviation, but our airports lag far behind our competitors. According to some rankings, no U.S. airports rank in the top 25 of airports worldwide. Our ports and waterways need repair and reimagination too. The bill invests $17 billion in port infrastructure and $25 billion in airports to address repair and maintenance backlogs, reduce congestion and emissions near ports and airports, and drive electrification and other low-carbon technologies. Modern, resilient, and sustainable port, airport, and freight infrastructure will support U.S. competitiveness by removing bottlenecks and expediting commerce and reduce the environmental impact on neighboring communities.
It’s not that there aren’t things to criticize in the IIJA, something climate hawks have done since before it was approved. Which would make Mace’s attack on the law as “mostly Green New Deal" hilarious except that it’s part of the GOP playbook this season, which is relying heavily on complaints about Biden’s environmental moves for being part of his “radical climate agenda.” As someone who has been forced by decades of delay and deception to become a radical climate hawk, I can attest that, unprecedented as it is, Biden’s far better than expected environmental agenda isn’t radical. The only thing surprising about Mace’s numbskull complaint is that she didn’t assert that Biden intentionally knocked down the bridge just so he could get more money from Congress.