Last week, 13 Republicans crossed the aisle in an inexplicable move that diffused a Democrat civil war and handed Joe Biden a big win. On Friday, enough members of the far-left “squad” were prepared to vote down the bipartisan infrastructure bill until GOP members stepped to the fore to give Pelosi what she needed.

There are a lot of reasons to be angry about that as a Republican, and we’ll get to some of those. But to set things up, I want to start this clip of GOP Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) on Fox News this morning defending her vote as one of the baker’s dozen who pushed through Biden’s agenda.

"At the end of the you don't against a bill simply because you want to stick it to the other side. You vote for a bill because it's the right thing to do for your constituents." @RepMalliotakis explains why she voted for President Biden's infrastructure package pic.twitter.com/wQA0qB8hp7

— America's Newsroom (@AmericaNewsroom) November 9, 2021

Frankly, I find this to be condescending garbage. The indication here by Malliotakis is that Republicans only oppose the bipartisan infrastructure bill because of politics. I reject that wholeheartedly. Do we like to own the libs from time to time? Sure we do, but this goes much further than not handing Biden a win on one of the chief planks of his policy platform.

The reality is that the country is in the midst of an inflationary boom, with today’s numbers being enough to make your eyes water. Producer price inflation rose to 8.6% year over year, which is the highest increase ever recorded in a country that has seen its share of financial crises. The middle-class is struggling under the weight of high energy costs and a supply chain crisis. The worst thing the government can do right now is pump more funny money into the economy via some boondoggle infrastructure bill.

And to be sure, it is indeed a boondoggle. Everything from “tree equity,” to payoffs for Joe Manchin’s wife, to money for fixing “racist” roads, is in there. But even if we assumed the bill was itself sound — and it’s not — who in their right mind would trust the Biden administration to be responsible with the distribution of these funds, especially since so much of it goes through our corrupt, inefficient bureaucracy?

Well, the answer to that question is Malliotakis, who apparently believes this bill is completely necessary for her constituents and has no concerns about government incompetence. That’s fine, but she shouldn’t be surprised when she finds herself with a primary challenger next year who will test that theory.

At the end of the day, there’s a reason these blue-state Republicans made up the majority of the GOP “yes” votes for the infrastructure bill. They live in districts that are perpetually mismanaged at the state and local level by Democrat politicians. But instead of working to change that reality on the ground, they’d rather fleece taxpayers in Florida and Texas in order to dump more money into the bottomless pit that is a city like New York. The GOP is supposed to stand against irresponsible stuff like this, and Malliotakis has failed that test. If Republicans want to win big in 2022, this isn’t the way to do it.