Republicans seek drastic cuts in infrastructure bill

WASHINGTON — Republicans support far more limited infrastructure spending than what President Biden has proposed, which would require scaling back the $2.3 trillion plan by more than twothirds, a senior GOP senator said Sunday.

With Biden’s Americans 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 corporaterate 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, eightyear capital investment” that tackles classic infrastructure projects like repairing bridges, and also 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 prepandemic levels in the shorter term.

Sen. Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican, said he could envisage bipartisan support on improving facilities like roads and airports, and possibly water systems and expanding broadband access — if the administration pared the package to something like $615 million.

“You’d still be talking about less than 30% of this entire package and it’s an easily doable 30%, I think,” he said on Fox. “When people think about infrastructure, they’re thinking about roads, bridges, ports and airports.”

But 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.”

Republicans portrayed Biden’s bid to cover the cost of the package by raising the corporate income tax to 28% from 21% 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.”

“I’m all for looking for ways to pay for it” without raising corporate taxes, Wicker said.

Senator 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.”

Biden’s plan introduced last week is a followup 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% from roughly 13%. The plan includes several other corporate increases, including more IRS audits on companies.