Home WORLD NEWS Biden announces bipartisan deal on infrastructure after meeting with GOP and Democratic senators – The Washington Post

Biden announces bipartisan deal on infrastructure after meeting with GOP and Democratic senators – The Washington Post

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President Biden signed off Thursday on a bipartisan agreement crafted by 10 senators that would pump hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending into infrastructure projects across the country — handing him, if it survives congressional approval, a significant cross-party achievement.

“We have a deal,” Biden said Thursday alongside the five Democrats and five Republicans who had negotiated for weeks on a package to revitalize the nation’s road and transit systems, while upgrading broadband and investing in other public-works projects.

Biden spoke during an impromptu appearance on the driveway outside of the West Wing of the White House after a shorter-than-expected meeting with senators, in which he delivered his formal endorsement of the proposal crafted by Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and eight others in the Senate.

The new agreement is nowhere near as expansive as the $2.2 trillion American Jobs Plan, Biden’s own infrastructure measure that he detailed in April. But Democratic leaders have made it clear that they hope to push through, potentially with only Democratic votes, a separate package encompassing priorities such as climate initiatives, paid leave and expanded education.

President Biden on June 24 announced that a bipartisan group of senators had reached a deal with the White House on infrastructure legislation. (The Washington Post)

“I’m not confident of anything, except I trust their word,” Biden said when asked whether he was confident he can secure the support of every Democrat in the Senate for the deal.

The 10 senators reached a tentative agreement on a framework Wednesday night after marathon negotiating sessions with three top White House officials: Steve Ricchetti, counselor to the president; Louisa Terrell, legislative affairs director; and National Economic Council Director Brian Deese.

The 10 senators in the group include moderates from both parties, but also some who less frequently reach across the aisle. Besides Portman and Sinema, they include Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Mark R. Warner (D-Va.).

The bipartisan agreement will spend $973 billion over five years, with $579 billion of that being new spending that was not already allocated through other projects, according to details released by the White House. That $579 billion figure includes $312 billion for transportation projects, $55 billion for water infrastructure and $65 billion for broadband.

“No one got everything they wanted in this package. We all gave some to get some,” Sinema said. “We are delighted to go back to the Hill and begin earning more support from Democrats and Republicans to get this bill across the finish line.”

Neither Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) nor Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have endorsed the bipartisan agreement, although Schumer said Wednesday night that he is generally supportive of its concepts.

A significant challenge will be ensuring that enough Democrats get on board to pass one of Biden’s chief domestic policy achievements into law, even though many are concerned that liberal priorities will get left behind by advancing an infrastructure package with Republican support.

Liberal Democrats have fretted for months that such a package would drain momentum from the White House’s push to expand spending programs on social programs and climate change, as well as its plans to raise taxes on the rich and corporations.

Thursday’s deal was expected to include at least $73 billion for the electric grid and clean energy funding, two people briefed on the discussions said, but that falls far short of the multitrillion-dollar effort sought by some on the left to combat climate change.

But members of the bipartisan Senate group were hopeful that Biden’s imprimatur will help soothe progressives.

“The president of United States came out in front of the press and the nation and the world, in a sense, and said he supports this deal,” Warner said. “I’ve never seen a time when a president of either party doesn’t have influence with members of their party. And Joe Biden has enormous, enormous respect on both sides.”

On the right, conservatives are uneasy about plans to increase enforcement by the Internal Revenue Service, a key funding mechanism for the new package. Anger among conservatives at the IRS intensified after recent reporting by ProPublica showing that the rich had low effective tax rates, a leak that infuriated the right.

 Besides enhancing IRS enforcement, the bipartisan group was expected to propose paying for the package by repurposing leftover funding from provisions in Biden’s coronavirus relief package, such as expanded unemployment benefits. Republican governors have cut off federal unemployment aid in more than 20 states. 

Warner helped push the White House position on funding during the talks, rejecting GOP suggestions to raise the gas tax or impose fees on electric vehicles, two people familiar with the matter said. The White House initially proposed paying for infrastructure with a higher corporate tax rate, but that approach was quickly ruled out by Republicans.

Republicans and some centrist lawmakers discussed funding mechanisms such as indexing the gas tax to inflation and imposing new fees on electric vehicles, which the White House says would hurt middle-class families and delay efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

 Lawmakers also discussed adopting a “superfund” tax on oil and hazardous chemicals, although nonpartisan estimates suggest that Biden’s plan to do so would only raise $30 billion over a decade.

It is unclear whether the final package will ultimately rely on deficit spending, and some financial experts are suspicious about whether lawmakers and the White House are serious about ensuring that the infrastructure plan can pay for itself.

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