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Vulnerable Republican Steve Chabot was called out yet again for misleading voters this week – this time for asking for federal funding he voted to block.
Chabot, along with the majority of Ohio’s GOP congressional delegation, voted to block critical investments in Ohio’s infrastructure – including the Brent Spence Bridge – when they voted against the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Now, Chabot is “offering public support for federal dollars for the Brent Spence Bridge Corridor project.”
The grant funding that Chabot is now supporting for the local bridge project was made possible by the infrastructure bill that Chabot himself called “extremely wasteful.”
DCCC Spokesperson Nebeyatt Betre
“When Steve Chabot had the chance to deliver funding for the Brent Spence Bridge project, he turned his back on his district and said no. Chabot has always been more concerned with pleasing his extreme partisan bosses than supporting Ohioans’ needs.”
Read key sections of the article below.
The Cincinnati Enquirer: Local Republicans urge money for new bridge after fighting law that made funding possible
Five area politicians who voted against last year’s gigantic infrastructure bill are now offering public support for federal dollars for the Brent Spence Bridge Corridor project.
The five – U.S. Reps. Steve Chabot, Brad Wenstrup and Warren Davidson from Ohio and U.S. Sen. Rand Paul and U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie from Kentucky – are among more than 200 political and business leaders who wrote letters of support for the bridge project’s application for a $1.66 billion federal grant.
Their letters – linked in the grant application and employing similar language in direct appeals to U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg – hailed the bridge as a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to boost the region’s economy as it makes crossing the Ohio River safer and easier.
The Ohio-Kentucky bridge officials announced May 24 that they submitted the application for a Multimodal Projects Discretionary Grant the prior week. That pot of money was created as part of the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
The five politicians who opposed it, all Republicans, said then that it included too much non-essential spending, especially on social programs tied to the Biden administration’s Build Back Better Plan priorities. All five repeated that criticism in late May, even as they reiterated their support of the Ohio-Kentucky request for dollars the bill made possible.
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Politicians ‘try to have it both ways’
Those five politicians certainly knew the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act made grant money for projects like the Brent Spence Bridge possible, said Adie Tomer, a senior fellow in infrastructure at the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C.
“They know this bill opened up these kinds of channels,” Tomer said.
Politicians try to have it both ways, he said. “They get to vote in Washington as if they are anti-establishment. They also know they get to come home and cut ribbons.”
As someone who studies and cares about infrastructure, Tomer is happy to see their support for the Brent Spence Bridge project. “That’s good. That’s good for the Cincinnati area. That’s good for Ohio and Kentucky. They should be supporting this project.”
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