Feenstra pans Biden infrastructure plan

MASON CITY —  Fourth District Congressman Randy Feenstra stopped in Mason City and Charles City this morning, touring Golden Grain Energy in Mason City before making stops in Charles City at Otto’s Oasis and the Pub on the Cedar. 

The freshman representative says President Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure plan doesn’t do enough for things like roads and bridges. “I look at infrastructure as an asset. You build a road, you build a bridge and it’s there for 20, 30, 40 years. The Biden $2 trillion infrastructure bill is just  disappointing in that sense. About six percent of it goes to roads and bridges. When I look at infrastructure, it’s not about policy, it’s not about things like they have in their bill about looking at advancing things like the Green New Deal.”

Biden’s plan includes $174 billion to promote electric vehicles and vehicle charging stations. Feenstra says that will hurt rural communities.  “You think about all of our mom-and-pop gas stations and stuff like that. They put in the infrastructure, and here you have it where they are putting charging stations at rest stops and stuff like that. That’s just not the American way that government’s going to run a utility like that instead of having the private sector do it.”

Feenstra says there’s a lot of work to be done on the proposed plan.  “I have a lot of concerns about it. Probably my greatest concern is adding another $2 trillion to our already big deficit of $30 trillion. I’m an economist and I just see that as a debt spiral. I fear that inflation is creeping in and our interest rates are going to look to go up.”