The Biden White House including the president himself and Vice President Kamala Harris actually did reach out to Republicans earlier this year to bring them onboard a large infrastructure spending proposal, but those same Republicans now have a tear in their beer because Democrats are planning to pass a bill without them.
The group of Senate Republicans who met with Biden and Harris at the White House say it's not fair that none of their input will go into a bill that none of them will vote for anyway.
The Democratic president appears to be losing political capital with 10 Senate Republicans who have signaled an openness to working with Democrats, including Susan Collins and Mitt Romney, whose support could give him the votes to pass bipartisan legislation. [...]
Biden also angered the 10 Senate Republicans last week by saying they had been unwilling to compromise. “They didn’t move an inch. Not an inch,” Biden said on Wednesday.
“That kind of bait and switch, coupled with President Biden’s ‘not one inch’ comments, certainly made an impression on the group of 10 about where this is all going,” said a Republican congressional aide close to February’s bipartisan talks. “The administration’s words ring hollow.”
Before Biden even unveiled his infrastructure spending proposal, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) vowed that no members of his causes would vote for a spending bill that raises taxes. McConnell's caucus includes the likes of Senators Collins, Romney, and the eight others who traveled to the White House with them. Exactly none of them were ever going to vote for a serious bill.
There is nothing more hollow than a Republican who says they might have supported your proposal if only you listened to them more. They will not vote for anything even if it's watered down for them. They won't vote for anything even if it's based on their own ideas. Remember Romneycare?
Centrist Senator Joe Manchin is still playing coy about the use of reconciliation to bypass a Republican filibuster, but Republicans have done a good job of their own convincing him that he should support it.
A three-page memo issued by the Senate Republican Conference dismisses the Biden infrastructure proposal as “a partisan plan to kill jobs and create slush funds on the taxpayer dime” that devotes “just 5%” of spending to roads and bridges.
These are not the words of people who would support your plan if you just listened to them more. I'm listening and what they have to say is nonsense.
Republicans who aren't happy with McConnell's strategy -- if any of them are actually displeased at all -- should not have kept him in their driver's seat.