Rep. Golden Celebrates $94 Million to Fix His State's Lead Pipes — From the Bill He Voted Against
'Proud to have worked to bring safe drinking water funding to our state,' says the congressman who called the funding a reckless spending spree when it passed
Ink = the flip (fiction). Red = real Republican · Blue = real Democrat.
WASHINGTON — Rep. Golden announced this week that he was 'proud to have worked to bring safe drinking water funding' to his state — specifically, $94 million to inventory and replace lead pipes — a sum flowing directly from an infrastructure law he voted against, denounced at the time as an unaffordable spending spree, and would presumably vote against again if it threatened to fund anything back home a second time.
The money arrives through a revolving fund created by the very bill the congressman opposed on the House floor, where he explained that the measure was 'not paid for' and larded with priorities he did not share. The Press's plumbing desk notes that the lead in the pipes was, at the time of that vote, entirely bipartisan, and remained so right up until the funding to remove it became something worth a photograph.
The maneuver — vote no in Washington, cut the ribbon at home — is among the most durable in American politics, available to any member willing to oppose a bill and then greet its benefits at the county line as though they had arrived by his personal escort. The Press has never located a lawmaker who declined the funding he voted against, nor one who mentioned the vote at the ceremony.
The congressman's office described the funding as a hard-won win for local families, a characterization that is true, and that omits only the part where he tried to prevent it. The families, for their part, will drink from the new pipes without being asked how their representative voted, which is the entire mechanism.
Reaction followed the standing choreography. Supporters saw a diligent member steering federal dollars to the people who need them; opponents saw a man taking credit for a check he tried to cancel. The Press archives confirm both parties own the vocabulary — 'delivering for the district' and 'shameless hypocrisy' — and swap it, ribbon and scissors included, whenever the other side is the one at the podium.
The lead pipes, reached for comment, said they did not follow roll-call votes and were simply glad to be leaving.
📜 The Receipts
What actually happened: Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) touted $94.3 million coming to Wisconsin to reduce lead in drinking water, posting that he was 'Proud to have worked to bring safe drinking water funding to our state.' The money flows from the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund under the 2021 bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act — which Steil voted against, saying at the time it was 'not paid for' and would fund a Green New Deal agenda.