Trillion-dollar baby
Joe’s building plan faces crucial deadline
President Biden’s push to forge a bipartisan infrastructure plan with moderate Republicans hung in the balance Tuesday as GOP leaders vowed to block the package ahead of a Wednesday procedural deadline set by Democrats.
A long day and night of intense negotiations loomed after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer started the clock moving toward a vote to open debate on Wednesday for the plan worth about $1 trillion.
Democrats would need 10 GOP votes to keep the ball rolling toward a deal that Biden wants to show he is working across the aisle.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Queens, Bronx) on Tuesday urged Senate Democrats to give up on the bipartisan bill if GOP lawmakers won’t meet the deadline. “It’s starting to get to a point where this bipartisan effort is ... serving more to end up just delaying action on infrastructure,” said AOC, a key progressive lawmaker. “It has been enough. It’s been months.”
Schumer insisted GOP lawmakers will still have every chance to shape the bipartisan bill going forward, including what exactly will be included and how exactly to pay for it.
“We never, almost never, wait on a complex bill like this for the full bill to be put on the floor to be debated,” said Schumer (D-N.Y.) “So we’re moving forward.”
But Republicans vowed to use their filibuster power to kill the bill unless they make far more progress on the fine print.
“We’re not going to vote to proceed to a bill that doesn’t exist yet,” Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said.
Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, one of the GOP negotiators, said that it will be a tough sell to get undecided Republicans onboard without more details.
“If we do it before people know what’s in the bill ... I feel we’re setting ourselves up for failure,” Romney said.
Biden and Democrats struck a tentative deal with a group of Republican and Democratic senators to spend $973 billion on traditional infrastructure, including roads, bridges, airports and railroads.
But they lack a clear plan for how to pay for it, with both sides seeking to avoid possible blame from voters for making them pay more.
GOP lawmakers won’t consider rolling back any of former President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and have backed away from a push to fund more tax enforcement by the IRS. Democrats, on the other hand, won’t go along with any hike in the gas tax or other user fees that the GOP favors.
Looming over the talks is a separate, much larger infrastructure plan that Democrats are planning to jam through Congress without any support from Republicans.
The Build Back Better plan will cost $3.5 trillion and includes sweeping new funding for education, health care, families and fighting climate change. Democrats are facing a self-imposed deadline on Wednesday to decide what will be included.
Democrats are trying to shepherd both packages through a closely divided Congress at the same time, while avoiding a slew of serious political pitfalls along the way.
Republicans fear they are giving Biden a big win by going along with the bipartisan plan. Progressives worry that moderate Democrats could seek to dramatically pare down the larger plan if and when the bipartisan plan is a done deal.
Ocasio-Cortez said Democrats should stop courting Republicans and move ahead with the entire $4.1 trillion in a Democrats-only push, even though it would require getting every Democrat on board.
“This is exactly the thing with a 50-50 Senate,” she said. “It’s a double-edged sword.”