Sen. Ted Cruz accused the president Joe Biden to use the Infrastructure Act 2021 to boost his re-election bid and calls for an investigation into signs that attribute infrastructure projects across the country to the law.
According to PoliticalCruz is objecting to signs that say “Project funded by President Joe Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure law,” saying the administration has “highly politicized” the $1 trillion law, which the president signed in 2021.
“I write to refer you for investigation as a possible violation of the Hatch Act, a federal law that broadly prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars for campaign activities,” the Texas Republican wrote in a letter to the head of the Office of Special Counsel on Thursday -fair. , by Politico. “Congress, not President Biden, wrote [the infrastructure law]and he did not do it to help the president’s re-election campaign.”
A White House spokesperson told Politico in response “that the signs ‘promote transparency and inform taxpayers how federal dollars are being spent.’” She added: “If Senator Cruz was as concerned about Texas children getting clean water as he is about the signs, he could have voted for the Infrastructure Act.”
Despite Cruz’s vote against the project, last year he welcomed a project in Texas funded by the legislation as a “major bipartisan victory.”
The senator’s complaint about the signs comes at a time when Biden is fighting for convince voters of his political victories in an election year. The infrastructure law, identified as one of Biden’s main legislative achievements, passed Congress with bipartisan support despite considerable opposition from the Republican Party. Radical MAGA lawmakers like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called their Republican colleagues who supported the bill “traitors” and posted their office phone numbers online. Several of them he said they received death threats.
Cruz said in his letter that the signs linking Biden to the infrastructure law “are nothing more than campaign signs, courtesy of the American taxpayer.” He also said the “INVESTING IN AMERICA” logo on those signs was “purposely designed to look like the Biden-Harris campaign logo,” Politico reported.
Former presidents have been criticized for associating their names with specific initiatives. During the height of the Covid pandemic, the IRS printed the name of then-President Donald Trump on the stimulus checks sent to millions of Americans. In 2001, letters were sent to taxpayers to inform them of a tax cut approved by President George Bush.
The senator himself recently attracted legal and ethical scrutiny over your podcast’s financial links to a political action committee supporting his own re-election campaign. In April, End Citizens United presented a complaint with the Federal Election Commission calling for an investigation into whether Cruz’s podcast, “Verdict with Ted Cruz,” improperly instructed his radio distribution company iHeartMedia to send hundreds of thousands of dollars to a pro-Cruz PAC. Cruz’s campaign said the senator is not paid by iHeartMedia, and in response to the report, told The Washington Post: “It’s very convenient that the mainstream media and the cogs in the Biden-Pelosi Democratic Party machine want this to stop. ”
This article was originally published in MSNBC.com
