GOP may back small infrastructure plan
Republicans focusing opposition on Biden’s proposal to raise corporate income tax rate
Republicans may be ready to support limited infrastructure funding in President Joe Biden’s spending proposal, which would require scaling back the $2.25 trillion plan by more than twothirds, a senior GOP senator said.
With Biden’s American Jobs Plan on the table for less than a week, administration officials and Senate Republicans took to the Sunday news shows to lay out opposing positions. As Biden faces calls from parts of the Democratic Party to go bigger, Republicans are focusing their opposition on a corporate-rate increase they say will hold back job creation.
Brian Deese, a key adviser who heads Biden’s National Economic Council, said the plan is a “onetime, eight-year capital investment” that tackles classic infrastructure projects such as repairing bridges and includes investments aimed at promoting longterm job growth.
“It’ll expand our economy’s potential,” Deese said on “Fox News Sunday,” adding that “we have a long way to go” to restore U.S. employment to pre-pandemic levels in the shorter term.
Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said he could envisage bipartisan support on improving facilities such as roads and airports, and possibly water systems and expanding broadband access — if the administration pared the package to something like $615 billion.
“You’d still be talking about less than 30 percent of this entire
package, and it’s an easily doable 30 percent, I think,” he said on Fox. “When people think about infrastructure, they’re thinking about roads, bridges, ports and airports.”
The very meaning of “infrastructure” needs a 21st-century makeover, said Cecilia Rouse, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
“It’s important that we upgrade our definition of infrastructure, one that meets the needs of a 21st-century economy, and that means we need to be funding and incentivizing those structures that allow us to maximize our economic activity,” Rouse said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
Resistance to tax increase
Republicans portrayed Biden’s bid to cover the cost of the package by raising the corporate income tax to 28 percent from 21 percent, a reversal from former President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cut, as a nonstarter that would kill jobs.
“Let me just tell you, that’s going to cut job creation in the United States of America,” Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” The 2017 tax cuts were “a plan that worked,” he said.
“I’m all for looking for ways to pay for it” without raising corporate taxes, Wicker said.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said in his home state of Kentucky on Thursday that his party won’t support the Biden plan as now written, “as much as we would like to address infrastructure.”
“The last thing the economy needs right now is a big, whopping tax increase,” McConnell told reporters.
Biden’s plan faces a tough road ahead in Congress as Republicans have already said they won’t vote for a measure paid for by tax increases. Some progressives say Biden’s plan isn’t large enough. Other congressional Democrats, including Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, said he likes Biden’s direction but plans to release his own international tax proposal to fund an infrastructure proposal.
Deese said Biden is ready to have a “conversation” on the plan and suggested that includes how to address Trump’s 2017 tax law.
“There’s a lot of sensible reform we could do, though, that would also generate revenue across time,” Deese said. “If people have different approaches to that, he’s open to doing it.”
Biden introduced an infrastructure-focused economic plan last Wednesday that seeks to upgrade U.S. roads, bridges, ports and water systems and pump money into semiconductor manufacturing, renewable energy and research and development. The plan also directs funding into other long-held Democratic priorities including electric vehicles, broadband internet and workforce development. Biden said that these investments are critical to the country as it emerges from the pandemic and faces challenges related to climate change and a global economy.
“We’re determined to make sure that Infrastructure Week is no longer a punchline around Washington,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said on ABC’s “This Week.” “That’s what this robust plan will do.”
A second proposal
The eight-year proposal is a follow-up to the $1.9 trillion economic relief bill passed in March with only Democratic votes. It seeks a minimum tax on profits U.S. corporations earn overseas, increasing the rate to 21 percent from roughly 13 percent. The plan includes several other corporate increases, including more IRS audits on companies.
The White House says it’s planning a second proposal in the coming weeks to address socalled social infrastructure including child care, health care and college tuition. That plan would be paid for by tax increases on wealthy households and could cost more than $1 trillion.
“Now is the time to begin addressing our physical infrastructure and our human infrastructure. I want to see that happen as soon as possible,” Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
The competing pressures mean Biden’s proposal likely will have to be broken up into two or even three pieces of legislation. Some parts will need Republican support to make it through the Senate, while other provisions may be put into fasttrack budget bills that need only Democratic votes to pass.