It's "unfortunate" that 13 House Republicans sided with Democrats to vote for the bipartisan infrastructure bill when it's "more about implementing the Green New Deal and setting the stage for the reconciliation bill," Rep. Claudia Tenney told Newsmax Monday.
"There's nothing like the Republicans to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory after the stunning and great wins in Virginia," the New York Republican said on Newsmax's "National Report." "A lot of Democrats lost because of the policies on the national stage."
The infrastructure bill, Tenney added, "takes all the power and money that could go to state and local governments and to our communities and gives it to bureaucrats in Washington, where they get to make the decisions."
But once the power switches to people like Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg or the EPA, "we're not going to be able to change that," she said.
Meanwhile, Tenney said she is confident in the ability of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to guide legislation, but also he had thought the Democrats wouldn't have the votes to pass the bill.
"This is a time we need to stick together, but I think Kevin is going to regroup and we're going to try to fight this," said Tenney. "But unfortunately, I'm worried. We're not going to be able to stop the next step ... it's a horrible bill and a huge spending problem.
"I know we've got to fight back, and I know these people, some of them are new members don't understand the difference between pork and policy and spending and sometimes pork."
Meanwhile, six progressive Democrats voted agains the bill.
Tenney also discussed a decision by the U.S. Fifth Circuit court that temporarily blocked OSHA last week from enforcing vaccine mandates on businesses with more than 100 employees and require workers to either have shots or weekly COVID testing.
"I'm hoping that the court ultimately determines that the Biden administration can't use OSHA, which is a federal bureaucracy again to force this mandate.
"It's very much like the rent moratorium that went through earlier this year that the court rejected. I have a bill out there: The Healthcare Freedom for All Bill, which doesn't allow the Biden administration to do this using OSHA, and so we're hoping that that bill gets through. I also have another bill. The employment freedom for all bill, which prevents employers from leveraging employees by forcing them to sign noncompete agreements or take the vaccine."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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