Pelosi Backpedals On Infrastructure Spending In Fourth Coronavirus Stimulus

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has walked back ambitious plans for infrastructure spending in the next coronavirus stimulus package – and is instead focusing on boosting direct payments to individuals as well as loans to businesses, according to Bloomberg, which notes that the shift will leave an estimated $800 billion infrastructure plan in limbo.

“While I’m very much in favor of doing what we need to do to meet the needs of clean water, more broadband and the rest of that, that may have to be for a bill beyond this,” Pelosi told CNBC in a Friday appearance. “I think right now we need a fourth bipartisan bill — and I think the bill could be very much like the bill we just passed.”

“So I’d like to go right back and say let’s look at that bill let’s update it for some other things that we need, and again put money in the pockets of the American people,” she said – promoting the much easier sell, which Bloomberg notes would probably have an easier time getting through Congress. 

Pelosi said the $350 billion included the last stimulus for small business to maintain payrolls for two months won’t be sufficient. She said the nation also will need an extension of the expanded unemployment benefits and additional direct payments to middle income individuals. –Bloomberg

Pelosi and other Congressional Democrats pitched approximately $800 billion in new infrastructure spending, which would be allocated towards boosting broadband, access to clean water, and funding for community health centers.

Congressional Republicans have pushed back against the idea – suggesting that we should wait and see what the impact of the first three packages have had, despite President Trump’s call for a $2 trillion infrastructure package.

Meanwhile, nobody has said how the infrastructure plan will be paid for, as nobody has come forward with an actual proposal.