Biden ends infrastructure negotiations with Republican senators
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
President Biden has ended negotiations with Senator Shelley Moore Capito and Republicans over infrastructure legislation, telling Capito Tuesday that the latest GOP offer didn't "meet the essential needs of our country" to fix roads and bridges, prepare the nation for a future reliant on clean energy and create jobs, according to White House press secretary Jen Psaki.
Psaki said that Mr. Biden has talked with several House and Senate lawmakers over the past two days, and he appreciated Capito's efforts and "good faith conversations," but he was disappointed that after he had reduced his plan by over $1 trillion, Republicans had "increased their proposed new investments by only $150 billion."
The president will now turn his attention to a bipartisan group of senators preparing their own infrastructure proposal. Psaki said he has spoken with Senators Sinema, Cassidy, and Manchin, and he plans to stay in touch with the lawmakers while he's in Europe.
A bipartisan team led by Republican Senator Mitt Romney, of Utah, had been working on an alternative to the offer by Capito's group as a backup in case its talks with the White House foundered.
Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, told reporters didn't see much evidence of compromise from Mr. Biden during the negotiations.
"The closest we ever were was the day we were in the Oval Office with the president," Barrasso said Tuesday. "He has never really moved toward us, in terms of core infrastructure he had lots of broad requests for things that the American people don't see as infrastructure, then he's never backed away from his desire to continue to want to raise taxes."
An administration official told CBS News that Mr. Biden asked Capito and her group whether they would be willing to significantly increase their offer, which was $928 billion over five years, with $257 billion in new spending. The president had previously lowered his offer from $2.3 trillion to $1.7 trillion. Capito offered an additional $50 billion in spending in a conversation with Mr. Biden on Friday, which the president rebuffed.
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 has been outright rejected by Republicans, who are unwilling to touch the 2017 tax cuts law signed by former President Trump. The Republican group had suggested using funds from previous coronavirus relief measures to pay for the bill, but the White House has turned this down and also opposes the idea of user fees.
In a meeting with Capito in person at the White House last Wednesday, the president emphasized portions of his plan that would be funded through corporate taxes, for instance, a 15% minimum tax on the nation's most profitable companies. However, although this approach could leave the 2017 tax cuts intact, it might not satisfy Republican lawmakers, who may view it as an unnecessary tax hike.
In a statement on Tuesday, Capito said that she was "disappointed by his decision" to end negotiations.
"Throughout our negotiations, we engaged respectfully, fully, and very candidly — delivering several serious counteroffers that each represented the largest infrastructure investment Republicans have put forth," Capito said. "Despite the progress we made in our negotiations, the president continued to respond with offers that included tax increases as his pay for, instead of several practical options that would have not been harmful to individuals, families, and small businesses."
Capito added that Biden's decision "does not mean bipartisanship isn't feasible," noting that the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee had approved several bipartisan pieces of infrastructure legislation recently.
It is unclear whether Mr. Biden will be able to reach a deal with the bipartisan group, but their proposal does include pay-fors, Romney said.
The smaller group is composed of around six senators, including Republican Senators Rob Portman, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski as well as Romney and Democratic Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin. Romney told reporters on Tuesday that his group was soon take its proposal to the "G-20," a group of 20 moderate senators from both parties.
Romney told reporters on Tuesday that his group had a "top-line number," and that they had "broken it up by category and pay-fors."
If Biden is unable to reach a deal with the bipartisan group, Democrats may try to pass his infrastructure proposal through budget reconciliation, a process which allows legislation to pass with a simple majority vote. However, Manchin has said that he is unwilling to use reconciliation to pass an infrastructure bill as long as bipartisan negotiations are viable.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer suggested Tuesday that some provisions included in Mr. Biden's plan could be passed through reconciliation, while other parts would be approved traditionally.
"It may well be that part of the bill that will pass will be bipartisan, and part of it will be through reconciliation, but we're not going to sacrifice the bigness and boldness in this bill. We will just pursue two paths and at some point they will join," Schumer said in a press conference.
Continue ReadingShow full articles without "Continue Reading" button for {0} hours. Microsoft and partners may be compensated if you purchase something through recommended links in this article.
Tags
Who is online
78 visitors
In terms of eventually getting a bill passed, this is good news.
What Joe Manchin doesnt understand is that Republicans will never give Biden this sort of win, and they will throw monkey wrenches into it from now until hell freezes over.
Now that Republican style "negotiating " is being bypassed a bill itself is actually that much closer to being passed.
Exactly what they did to Obama during the last Republican created recession. Then after blocking everything, they complain that recovery was too slow, and it was Obama's fault.
The issue here isn't so much infrastructure or Bidens' broad definition of it, it's how it is going to be paid for. Although the group of Republican Senators led by Sen Shelley Moore Capito couldn't go any higher and Biden couldn't go any lower, that has strangely led Biden to, as this piece calls it, "a bipartisan group of senators preparing their own infrastructure proposal." What happened to the idea that democrats had one more "reconciliation bullet" this year? That is where they would normally go, but obviously they don't have moderate democrats on board.
This is the consequence of coming to power without a clear mandate and trying to jam through as much as possible, as quickly as possible of a very radical agenda. As the challenges mount up for the Biden administration, moderate democrats realize that their chances at re-election are on the line.
Welcome to reality Joe.
What was Trump's infrastructure plan, other than to privatize everything?
I don't recall Donald Trump forwarding democratic agenda's. I thought he was a Republican.
trumpturd had no plans for anything other than lining his and his cronies' pockets.
Didn't Manchin push back on a Democrat only infrastructure bill because it was too broad to be called infrastructure? I thought he had issues with the bill as put forth by the Democrats.
Manchin feels it is too broad and too big - kind of like the people who elected him.
Question: How many moderate democrats are thankful for Manchin and Sinema? It has given them some cover and I suspect Schumer knows how they feel.
Good thing we elected Manchin president last November so he could make these decisions for us.
Doesn't need to be President to make that determination and act accordingly. He has the right to vote his conscience and what's best for his constituents. He is still a member of Congress. President is just the stroke of the pen final say so.
Why not? You elected a man with no campaign, who hid in his basement only for the purpose of beating Trump.
Maybe you should of thought about what might happen with an empty vessel?
The empty vessel waddled out of the White House on 1/20/21. After he tried to burn in all down on 1/6/21 and contest the election that he lost by over 7 MILLION VOTES..
It wasn't empty, he took at least 1 bucket of fried chicken, and his Diet Coke button with him.....
Which has been explained. I know that republicans hate the thought of taxing their wealthy overlords, but the tax structure has been in their favor for decades now, and has allowed them to take a larger and larger amount of money. In our time of need, they should step up and start paying some of that money back, just like Trump said they would when he passed his millionaire tax breaks.
Seems that Manchin is full of shit.
Joe Manchin said in 2011 that the US was 'paralyzed by the filibuster' but is now blocking efforts to change it
Fuck Manchin. He's a DINO. President Biden needs to pass the infrastructure bill through reconciliation. The republicans won't back anything President Biden offers up, NOTHING.
He's a blue dog dem in a conservative state. Being a Democrat isn't monolithic.
They can only do that twice per year and they've already used up one. How will jamming anything through help the Dems? Losing this way raises them reelection campaign funding.
Yes, it looks that way doesn't it. So instead of pushing for bi-partisanship you just want to win your way? I say let the Republicans continue to hang themselves with the swing voters if they don't want to govern.
You would prefer a Republican sitting in Manchin's seat? Because that is exactly what will happen if he goes along with this radical agenda.
Majority approve of Biden infrastructure plan — CBS News poll
Biden job approval hits 53%, broad majority support his infrastructure plan: NBC News poll
58% of voters support passing Biden's $4 trillion infrastructure plan without any Republican votes, poll finds