Listen to this article

On Sunday, Republican senators emphasized the potential for a bipartisan deal as Congress gets to work on negotiating an infrastructure bill and President Joe Biden touts his American Jobs Plan. Point to be noted that infrastructure has long been held up in Washington as one of a dwindling few issues on which there can be bipartisan agreement. They opposed President Biden and Democrats over the scope of what should be included in the bill and how to pay for it. Senator Rob Portman said that members of both parties have been meeting frequently and believes a bipartisan agreement can be reached. The Group consists of 10 Republicans who worked with Democrats on the Covid-19 relief bill and whose votes are necessary in order to reach the 60-vote threshold needed to overcome a filibuster.

Portman said, “There’s a way forward here if the White House is willing to work with us”. He disagreed with raising the corporate tax rate and criticized the size of Biden’s plan. Portman said that only about 20% of the proposed new spending went to traditional infrastructure spending and could be afforded through the mechanisms he favors. He proposed public-private partnerships, user fees such as the gas tax, and repurposing state and local funding from the Covid-19 relief package for infrastructure, in spite of raising the corporate tax rate. Republicans portray Biden and Democrats as negotiating in bad faith if they refuse to abandon central components of the plan, including raising corporate taxes and expanding federal investment in green job creation and health care.

Republican Senator John Barrasso, Bill Cassidy, and Susan Collins all emphasized that any bipartisan deal can only focus on the roads and bridges that make up a typical surface transportation reauthorization bill. They said the price tag and any tax increase are non-starters. Barrasso said Republicans counteroffer a $568 billion plan from Senator Shelley Moore, which is about a quarter of what Democrats want to spend and it can be a reason of starting point for negotiations. Barrasso said, “It’s the trillions and trillions of dollars of reckless spending”. Collins also painted the infrastructure negotiations as an ultimatum for Biden while disagreeing with core parts of his plan, including raising the corporate tax rate to 28%. She didn’t offer an alternative for how to pay for the infrastructure bill.