Borrowing more money to pay for infrastructure is a bad idea, says Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.), and he’s willing to look at compromises on a new infrastructure plan that doesn’t include borrowing and contributing to more national debt.

“Skin in the game is the most powerful too out there,” said Braun, in a Tuesday call with reporters.

He held Indiana’s infrastructure plan to build roads and bridges, as an example of how to do it, while paying for it, at least somewhat, at the same time. It’s what Braun called “real pay fors”. Indiana’s plan provides for payment for the investments every year, wth money coming from a variety of sources. The state’s website says the plan will be paid for through the next 15 years, and that almost no other state has those bragging rights.

Braun, who has been against more borrowing for almost any type of federal spending, said he’s partial to a bipartisan plan that would use public-private partnerships and some repurposing of federal money, including leftover COVID money, to pay for about $1.2 trillion worth of roads, bridges, broadband internet and other items, over eight years.

“If it gets above that price tag of what we’re talking about currently around a trillion and it doesn’t have clear pay fors, I’ll have to wear my fiscal hawk hat and I’ll have to vote against it on that principle,” said Braun.

So far, 11 Republicans have agreed to support the deal, along with ten members of the Senate Democratic Caucus.

While Democrats look for a way to move on voting rights, Braun said he could not have supported the “For the People Act” because he believes it would give the federal government too much power over election, and it would also “promote career politicians”.

“It gets rid of photo voter ID and by the way, 80 percent of the country thinks that’s a bad idea, 62 percent of Democrats,” he said.

Braun said he agrees that any form of election reform should make it easy to vote and should maintain fairness and that a legal ballot is cast and counted. But, he is not in favor of the federal government being in charge of those elections.

“It does not take the federal government searching to find some way to change things, where it was not intended to be that way Constitutionally.”