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President Biden ended his negotiations with Senator Shelley Moore Capito and Republicans over infrastructure legislation, telling Capito on Tuesday that the latest Republican bid “did not meet the basic needs of our country” to repair roads and bridges, and prepare the nation for a dependable future. Clean energy and job creation, according to White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki.
Psaki said Biden has spoken with several lawmakers in the House and Senate over the past two days and appreciated Capito’s efforts and his “good faith conversations,” but was disappointed that, after cutting his plan by more than $1 trillion, Republicans had already done so. They increased their proposed new investment by only $150 billion.
The president will now turn his attention to a bipartisan group of senators preparing their infrastructure proposal. Psaki said he has spoken with Senators Kirsten Senema, Bill Cassidy and Joe Manchin, and plans to stay in touch with lawmakers while in Europe.
A bipartisan team led by Republican Senator Mitt Romney, of Utah, has been working on an alternative to the Capito Group’s offer as a backup in case his talks with the White House falter.
They are “going line by line and adding some numbers from some things,” Romney told reporters Tuesday night.
“We’re taking some money from other things from our last meeting, so we have more input,” Romney said. “We have input from the committees and what they voted on, what they agreed on, and we’re just making the adjustments one by one.”
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As for the timeline for the talks, Cassidy did not elaborate but said “you always want to take advantage of the moment.”
“In the world of everything we’re talking about – they’re moving in the right direction,” Manchin said Tuesday night.
The bipartisan House problem-solving conference is also working on an infrastructure plan with Senators Cassidy, Cinema, Portman and Mansion, among others, and the group’s co-chairs, Congressmen Josh Gottheimer, a New Jersey Democrat, and Brian Fitzpatrick, a Republican. Pennsylvania, the White House briefed Monday night on what their business is. On Tuesday night, the bipartisan House group released a $1.2 trillion “physical” infrastructure framework, but they are still working with senators on how to pay for the plan. Their framework includes $761.8 billion in new spending over eight years.
“It is critically important that we have a strong infrastructure package signed into law, and do so with strong bipartisan support,” Gottheimer said in a statement, and said the group’s framework “addresses everything from electric cars to clean water to repairing collapsed bridges, tunnels, and roads.” and railways.” Fitzpatrick called on Congress and the White House to “unify” and “move our transportation systems into the 21st century.”
After the administration ended its negotiations with Republican senators and engaged with the bipartisan group, Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, told reporters that there was little evidence of a compromise from Biden.
“The closest we’ve ever been to the day we were in the Oval Office with the president,” Barrasso said on Tuesday. “He’s never moved toward us, in terms of basic infrastructure, he’s had a lot of broad demands for things that the American people don’t see as infrastructure, and then he’s never backed away from his desire to keep raising taxes.”
An administration official told CBS News that Biden asked Capito and her group if they were willing to significantly increase their bid, which was $928 billion over five years, with $257 billion in new spending. The president had previously cut his offer from $2.3 trillion to $1.7 trillion. Capito offered an additional $50 billion to spend in a conversation with Biden on Friday, which the president rejected.
Funding has been a sticking point in the ongoing negotiations between Republicans and the White House. Mr. Biden has proposed raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%, which Republicans have rejected outright, unwilling to broach the 2017 tax cuts act signed by former President Trump. The Republican group has proposed using money from previous coronavirus relief measures to pay the bill, but the White House has rejected that and also opposes the idea of user fees.
In a meeting with Capito in person at the White House last Wednesday, the president emphasized parts of his plan that will be funded through corporate taxes, for example, a 15% minimum tax on the nation’s most profitable businesses. However, while this approach may leave the 2017 tax cuts intact, it may not satisfy Republican lawmakers, who may view them as an unnecessary tax increase.
Capito said in a statement on Tuesday that she was “disappointed with his decision” to end the negotiations.
“During our negotiations, we engaged respectfully, fully, and very openly — and introduced several serious countermeasures that each represented the largest investment in infrastructure the Republicans had made,” Capito said. “Despite our progress in our negotiations, the President continued to respond with offers that included tax increases as his pay, rather than many more practical options that were not to the detriment of individuals, families and small businesses.”
Capito added that Biden’s decision “does not mean that a bipartisanship is not possible,” noting that the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee recently approved several bipartisan infrastructure legislation.
Romney said it was unclear whether Biden would be able to reach a deal with the bipartisan group, but their proposal includes payments.
The smaller group is made up of six senators, including Republican senators Rob Portman, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski as well as Romney and Democratic Senators Cinema and Manchin. Romney told reporters on Tuesday that his group would soon submit its proposal to the “Group of Twenty,” a bipartisan group of 20 moderate senators.
Romney told reporters on Tuesday that his group had a “special number” and that they had “branded it down by category and amount paid.”
If Biden cannot reach an agreement with the bipartisan group, Democrats may try to pass his infrastructure proposal through a budget compromise, a process that allows the legislation to pass by a simple majority. However, Manchin said he is unwilling to use reconciliation to pass the infrastructure bill as long as bipartisan negotiations are viable.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer suggested on Tuesday that some of the items included in Biden’s plan could be passed through reconciliation, while other parts would be approved conventionally.
“That part of the bill that will be passed may be bipartisan, and part of it will be through reconciliation, but we will not sacrifice the massiveness and boldness of this bill. At some point they will join only two tracks,” Schumer said at a news conference.
In her statement, Psaki said Biden also spoke to Schumer “to discuss the need to begin work on the budget reconciliation process so that legislation on the president’s economic priorities and tax reform plans can move to the Senate floor in July.”
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