WASHINGTON – United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) joined Kudlow on Fox Business to talk infrastructure and the recent attacks in the Middle East.
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Hagerty on Biden’s smokescreen Rose Garden address: “You noticed President Biden’s speech today, where he took credit for Operation Warp Speed, and didn’t give any credit to President Trump, as you rightly called out. What he did was provide a typical old fashioned Washington smokescreen, a distraction, because he didn’t talk about the Colonial Pipeline and the hack there from Russia. He didn’t talk about the fact that we’ve got inflation. He didn’t talk about the border crisis that we’re dealing with right now. He didn’t talk about bad jobs numbers, and unemployment. They’re trying to distract us from what the real issues are. I’m glad that we’re going to be taking masks off, but it’s interesting what he didn’t say today, as you noted earlier.”
Hagerty on the Middle East: “Indeed, and this whole policy shift of the Biden Administration had four months in office. We had countries that were moving in the right direction toward the Abraham Accords and the momentum that had already been created by President Trump and his administration with the Abraham Accords. We could have capitalized on that. Instead Biden moves to a policy of appeasement with Iran. It emboldens Iran, and it fuels this type of terrorism. My team just told me today that there are about 2000 rockets that had been launched from Gaza into Israel. All of those rockets are from one country—Iran.”
Hagerty on infrastructure and Interstate 40 Bridge: “We’ve got some real infrastructure needs. You just look at my home state, Larry. There’s Interstate 40, a bridge that connects Arkansas to Tennessee. That bridge cracked this week. It’s made a huge problem in terms of road traffic, but even bigger problems in terms of the waterway. That’s the Mississippi River, it’s a super highway of middle America. We have over 740 barges that are sidelined right now. There’s fuel, there’s all kinds of commodities that need to move up and down that river that are being blocked right now because of this infrastructure failure. So it underscores the fact that America does need and can make real hard infrastructure investment. The problem is that the Biden Bill has maybe 10 percent of what you and I would call real infrastructure. I’m talking there are roadways, bridges, waterways, even broadband, everything else has nothing to do with what you and I would consider infrastructure in a traditional sense. So there’s a huge yawning gap to close. And I appreciate Senators Capito, Senator Wicker, their leadership trying to address this. I’ll tell you, I’m not optimistic though, Larry, I’m not optimistic about it.”
Hagerty on Biden tax policy: “Just as you say, there’s bond of capacity. There are billions of dollars of private capital on the sidelines could be brought in, but to turn them around and undo the great success of the 2017 Tax Act that President Trump passed. The great blue collar jobs recovery that you and President Trump helped orchestrate, to turn around and take that apart, to raise taxes on job creators and workers is exactly the wrong policy.”
Hagerty on Biden Admin’s misguided effort to roll back the 2017 tax cuts: “Leader McConnell said the same thing. That’s his red line. And I agree with him. The last thing we need to be doing, Larry, as we come out of recovery, as we come out of this recession and recover, is to turn around and create all the wrong incentives for our economy. And taking apart the 2017 Tax Act is going to move our economy in exactly the wrong direction. Again, we’ve got inflation, we’re dealing with bad jobs, numbers, and unemployment. We need to be very careful right now and not put in jeopardy our recovery by, by tampering with the 2017 Tax Act.”