Senators Claim Infrastructure Bill Is ‘Paid For’; Experts Disagree

Both Democratic and Republican senators who negotiated a bipartisan infrastructure bill have claimed the legislation is “paid for.” But a budget watchdog group says the bill only pays for about half of the $548 billion in new spending.

The crux of the disagreement is that the senators count savings from COVID-19 relief programs that didn’t end up costing as much as expected.

“The framework claims $491 billion of offsets, and an additional $56 billion of savings from dynamic scoring, to pay for the bill,” the Committee for a Responsible Federal...