Biden’s spending plans hit a Republican wall
What happened
President Biden stepped up negotiations with Republican lawmakers over his $4 trillion spending package this week, seeking to find common ground that would allow some version of his plans to pass a sharply divided Congress. Biden’s proposed package has two parts: the $2.3 trillion American Jobs Plan, focused on infrastructure, and the $1.8 trillion American Families Plan, which would subsidize child-care and family-leave programs and provide free community college and universal pre-K. The White House said Biden had a “warm, friendly” chat with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, the top Republican behind a $568 billion counterproposal on infrastructure. That plan directs spending only at roads, bridges, high-speed internet, and other “core infrastructure.” Biden said he was willing to slim down his own plan— which includes billions of dollars for elder care and for making homes more energy-efficient—but if Republicans only agree to “one-fifth of what I’m asking, then it’s a no-go for me.”
With Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell insisting that “zero” Republican senators will vote for Biden’s “grab bag” proposals as they are, Democrats said they were open to breaking the plans into chunks or passing them through reconciliation. Using the filibuster-proof procedural tool would require the support of all 50 Senate Democrats. That includes moderate Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who last week said that the price tag of the Families Plan made him “uncomfortable” and that he wants “a traditional infrastructure bill” without “all different subject matters in it.”
What the columnists said
Biden claims that the super-rich will foot the bill for his $4 trillion spending spree, said Joshua Jahani in NBCNews.com. He wants to nearly double the capital gains tax rate to 39.6 percent for top earners and to boost the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent. But it’s “delusional to think that the U.S. can increase taxes so significantly without costing the country in competitiveness and growth.” Big business and the ultra-wealthy will dodge those taxes by keeping their profits offshore, and so only small and medium-size businesses will feel the pain.
Republicans aren’t engaging in serious negotiations over infrastructure, said James Downie in The Washington Post. Their $568 billion counteroffer is even smaller than it seems, because it features “just $189 billion in new spending.” And while Republican senators say they’re happy to explore different ways to pay for the spending, they claim any corporate tax hike will be a job killer. “Never mind that the 2017 Trump tax cuts, which slashed the corporate rate from 35 percent to 21 percent, had little economic benefit.”
Bipartisan or not, Biden’s plans are remarkably popular, said Nathaniel Rakich in FiveThirtyEight.com. Polls show that 68 percent of Americans back the key components of his infrastructure proposal and 64 percent approve of the main parts of the Families Plan. If Biden does somehow ram through $4 trillion in spending, “he will at least be able to claim public opinion is on his side.”