By BECKY KISER
Hays Post
The senior U.S. senator for Kansas, Jerry Moran, is supportive of additional investment in infrastructure across the country.
"The challenge has always come in how it's paid for," Moran said Tuesday during a visit to the Hays Regional Airport.
"It does seem to me that a $1.9 trillion [COVID relief package] and now a $2 trillion infrastructure bill, we are past what's affordable, what the country can afford.
"It's significant money that we are borrowing and has a huge consequence to the current and future economy, but also to the next generation of Americans."
Democratic President Joe Biden is set to unveil a roughly $2 trillion effort on Wednesday in Pittsburg, Pa., which would improve the nation's infrastructure and shift to greener energy over the next eight years.
Moran, a Republican, is part of a group of 10 Republican and 10 Democratic senators working to "find a bipartisan plan that is something that is affordable and does invest in infrastructure."
Moran said he would be supportive of the plan including more than what is traditionally thought of as infrastructure — bridges, highways and roads.
"It very well could include city water works, pavement on airports, broadband. I think we have a lot to gain by investing in infrastructure and I want to be supportive of it but how we pay for it and how much money we expend at one time still is really important to me."
Moran said he remains open-minded and has yet to see anything on paper about the president's American Jobs Plan.
"I always tell Kansans that we are in the middle of the country, and for our agricultural commodities, for our manufactured goods to be in world markets, how efficient we are in getting it there matters greatly," Moran said. "It's true here at this airport. It's true for our highways, roads and bridges.
"Infrastructure determines the cost of transportation. The cost of transportation has a huge consequence in whether or not what we do here can be sold around the world."