White House prepares infrastructure bill with universal pre-K, free community college, and climate measures

White House officials are preparing to present President Joe Biden with a roughly $3 trillion infrastructure and jobs package that includes high-profile domestic-policy priorities, such as free community college and universal prekindergarten, according to three people familiar with internal discussions.

After completing the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package this month, Biden administration officials are piecing together the next major legislative priority. Although no final announcement has been made, the White House is expected to push a multitrillion jobs and infrastructure plan as the centerpiece of the president’s “Build Back Better” agenda.

That effort is expected to be broken into two parts — one focused on infrastructure, and the other focused on other domestic priorities, such as growing the newly expanded child tax credit for several years. The people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations, stressed that planning was preliminary and subject to change. Some aides said the package’s final price tag remains unclear.

Although still in the works, the sprawling legislative package follows weeks of uncertainty about Biden’s second big legislative effort and confusion among congressional lawmakers about the administration’s top priority.

The infrastructure and jobs bill is poised to further define Biden’s presidency. He has faced intense pressure, including from some Democrats, to scale back his domestic-policy ambitions and work with congressional Republicans on more incremental legislation after his $1.9 trillion pandemic relief plan, which every Republican voted against.

Doing so would require Biden to jettison many of his most consequential 2020 presidential-campaign promises while frustrating much of his base and Democratic Party leadership. Introducing a new $3 trillion package, which is expected to include tax increases to offset spending, is sure to frustrate Republicans, setting up another acrimonious legislative fight. But it gives the president a chance to solidify a domestic-policy agenda beyond the emergency response to the pandemic.

“The country has not had a real infrastructure bill since Dwight Eisenhower set up the highway system,” said former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democratic proponent of infrastructure spending. “This could do more for American manufacturing and blue-collar jobs than anything else.

It’s crucial not just for Biden’s legacy but for the legacy of the American government in the next decade. It’s a seminal moment for the country.”

Crucial decisions have not been made about how the administration seeks to advance the measure. Congressional Republicans probably will not support trillions more in additional spending, or the tax increases that the White House is eyeing to fund these initiatives. It’s unclear what the appetite could be, even among congressional Democrats, to use reconciliation — the budgetary procedure that Democrats used to pass the pandemic bill in the Senate.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement that the administration had not decided on its next step.