Biden shifts gears in bid for infrastructure deal
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Tuesday ended talks with a group of Republican senators led by Shelley Moore Capito, R-W. Va., over his infrastructure proposal and started reaching out to senators from both parties in a new effort for a bipartisan deal, setting a summer deadline for Congress to approve his top legislative priority.
The president is walking away from talks with Capito after the two spoke Tuesday, but he would welcome her in the new bipartisan group, according to an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private negotiations.
“[The president] informed Senator Capito today that the latest offer from her group did not, in his view, meet the essential needs of our country to restore our roads and bridges, prepare us for our clean energy future, and create jobs,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement.
“He offered his gratitude to her for her efforts and good faith conversations, but expressed his disappointment that, while he was willing to reduce his plan by more than $1 trillion, the Republican group had increased their proposed new investments by only $150 billion.”
At the same time, Demo
crats are laying the groundwork to approve some or all of the infrastructure package on their own. Biden conferred Tuesday with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., about starting the budget resolution process for Senate votes in July, the White House said.
“The President is committed to moving his economic legislation through Congress this summer, and is pursuing multiple paths to get this done,” Psaki said.
The breakdown comes after weeks of prolonged infrastructure talks between the president and Capito, in which the two sides failed to bridge the divide over the scope of Biden’s infrastructure investment proposal and how to pay for it.
The Republican senators offered a $928 billion proposal, which included about $330 billion in new spending — but not as much as Biden’s $1.7 trillion proposal for rebuilding the nation’s roads, bridges, highways and other infrastructure, including Veterans Affairs hospitals and care centers.
Biden has proposed raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%, a nonstarter for Republicans, and he rejected the GOP senators’ suggestion of tapping unspent covid-19 aid money to fund the infrastructure projects.
In a statement, Capito said she was “disappointed by his decision” to end the talks after refusing her latest offer on a revised package.
“Despite the progress we made in our negotiations, the president continued to respond with offers that included tax increases as his pay for, instead of several practical options that would have not been harmful to individuals, families, and small businesses,” she said in a statement.
But she also expressed interest in ongoing bipartisan work.
“While I appreciate President Biden’s willingness to devote so much time and effort to these negotiations, he ultimately chose not to accept the very robust and targeted infrastructure package, and instead, end our discussions,” she said. “However, this does not mean bipartisanship isn’t feasible.”
Biden shifted gears quickly. He spoke Tuesday afternoon with Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., who has been part of a bipartisan effort that met Tuesday evening, as well as Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, who is part of the bipartisan negotiations, said the members were going through items “line by line” at the Tuesday meeting, but they have yet to agree on a deal.
The new bipartisan talks are expected to focus on a package that would be narrower than what Biden originally proposed, but they could also include a still-undetermined way of offsetting some of the costs with revenue.
Psaki said the president urged the senators to continue their work “to develop a bipartisan proposal that he hopes will be more responsive to the country’s pressing infrastructure needs.” Biden tapped Cabinet and White House aides to meet with the senators in person.
Many Republicans have agreed that there needs to be a large investment in U.S. infrastructure, but they argue that Biden’s definition of “infrastructure” in his original proposal was too broad, including large levels of spending on elder care and other services.
“He has never really moved toward us in terms of core infrastructure,” Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said Tuesday. “He had lots of broad requests for things that the American people don’t see as infrastructure, and he has never backed away from his desire to continue to want to raise taxes.”
Biden had proposed an infrastructure package as a key part of his 2020 presidential campaign, saying he wanted to rebuild roads, bridges, highways and ports; expand access to housing and broadband; and effectively modernize the United States for the 21st century. Donald Trump had also proposed an infrastructure package when he ran for president, but talks never went anywhere on Capitol Hill during his four years in office, in part because Trump never settled on a specific plan.
With the narrowly split House and the 50-50 Senate, the White House faces political challenges in pushing its priorities through Congress with Democratic votes alone. Biden’s party holds a slight majority in the Senate because Vice President Kamala Harris can break a tie.
The special budget rules could provide Biden with an alternative path, particularly in the Senate, because they allow legislation to be approved with a 51-vote threshold, rather than the 60 votes typically needed to advance a bill past a filibuster.
Democrats are watching warily as time passes and anxiety builds, with many lawmakers worried they are not fulfilling their campaign promises to voters who put the party in control of Congress and the White House.
During a private discussion of Democratic senators at lunch Tuesday, there were differing views over whether they should keep talking with Republicans or pursue an approach that would allow them to pass a bill on their own, through the budget reconciliation process.
Schumer told reporters afterward that Democrats are pursuing “a two-path approach.”
On one track are the newly emerging conversations between Biden and the bipartisan group of lawmakers who are “trying to put something together that might be close to what the president needs.” It’s unclear what size that proposal might be.
At the same time, however, Schumer said Democrats are getting to work on a reconciliation package that might only need support from Democrats, acknowledging that their party is unlikely to accomplish everything they hope for in a bill crafted alongside the GOP.
“It may well be part of the bill that’ll pass will be bipartisan, and part of it will be through reconciliation,” Schumer said. “But we’re not going to sacrifice the bigness and boldness in this bill.”
Ahead of Biden’s announcement, the White House had also spoken to other lawmakers, including from the House.
Reps. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., and Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., the co-chairs of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, spoke late Monday with Brian Deese, director of the White House National Economic Council, about bipartisan efforts to reach an infrastructure deal, according to an aide who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private conversations.