“Members of Congress have begun a frenzy of lobbying to ensure that their pet projects and policy priorities are included in President Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure and jobs plan, eager to shape what could be one of the most substantial public works investments in a generation,” the New York Times reports.
Biden Points to China In Infrastructure Push
Associated Press: “It’s a national security pitch for a domestic spending program: that the $2 trillion proposal for investments in U.S. transport and energy, manufacturing, internet and other sectors will make the United States more competitive in the face of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s massive infrastructure-building campaign.”
“The argument is that competition today with China is more about economic and technological gains than arms — and its outcome will impact the United States’ financial growth and influence, its ability to defend U.S. security alliances and interests abroad, and the daily lives of Americans… That pitch hasn’t won over Republicans.”
GOP Wants a Bill, Unless It’s Paid For or Not Paid For
Jonathan Chait: “So we’re stuck. It’s not just that Republicans are creating a clever logic game to rule out a popular Biden proposal. They are genuinely unable to put together a big infrastructure bill. President Trump was extremely eager to sign such a bill, but Republicans in Congress foundered on the question of how to pay for it, and they also wouldn’t pay for it with deficit spending…”
“If Republicans weren’t able to figure out a way around this problem under Trump, the prospect of Joe Biden signing a huge popular bill is not going to incentivize them.”
“If anything could bring them to the table, it’s Democrats threatening to finance the bill by taxing rich people, then allowing Republicans to negotiate that away (and being willing to accept debt financing rather than harming one hair on the heads of the precious, fragile job creators.)”
“In the meantime, they’re going to oppose any infrastructure bill that’s paid for, and any bill that isn’t.”
Inside the Plan to Sell Biden’s Infrastructure Proposal
Politico: “The massive outreach campaign comes as the Biden administration attempts to move a behemoth spending package across the goal line, just weeks after winning approval from Congress for its $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief package.”
“As one person close to the White House put it, in their mind, Republicans will be viewed as ‘profoundly out of touch’ if they don’t get on board with backing the next round of spending. … Part of the sales pitch to Americans will be an appeal to suburban women, who have been particularly battered by the pandemic, leaving the workforce in droves and often carrying the burden of caretaking amid schools and childcare center closures.”
Axios: Soros group pledges $20 million to pass Biden plan.
Blunt Says Biden Could Have ‘Easy Win’ With Smaller Bill
Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) said the Biden White House could score “an easy win” on infrastructure if it would just reduce its new plan to focus solely on infrastructure, Politico reports.
Said Blunt: “I think there’s an easy win here for the White House if they would take that win, which is make this an infrastructure package, which is about 30 percent, even if you stretch the definition of infrastructure some, it’s about 30 percent of the $2.25 trillion we are talking about spending.”
He added: “Obviously Democrats have figured out that infrastructure is something we need and something that’s popular and so they’re trying to take 70 percent of this bill and call it infrastructure in a new way than we’ve ever talked about infrastructure before — and that means you’re looking at another partisan package just like we had with Covid.”
Republicans Are Boxed In on Infrastructure
Jennifer Rubin: “Having declared themselves in favor of infrastructure for years, they either have to come up with a tax scheme that will fall far more heavily on ordinary taxpayers or give up their phony deficit mania (which does not apply to tax cuts, apparently). This puts Democrats in both the roles of being fiscal conservatives (pay as you go!) and defenders of working-class Americans. Republicans have the choice between embracing fiscal irresponsibility or giving up their laughable claim to be the party of working people.”
Key Parts of Biden Plan Are Extremely Popular
“White House senior adviser Anita Dunn is making the case that Democrats can’t lose by rallying around President Biden’s infrastructure plan because its individual components poll even higher than the $1.9 trillion COVID stimulus passed last month,” Axios reports
“Dunn cites public polling showing between 74% and 87% support among Americans for seven elements: new job training for coal miners, highway and bridge work, increasing affordable childcare, expanding broadband access, expanding family and medical leave, upgrading public transportation, and investing in clean energy.”
Jennifer Rubin: “The media, it seems, are caught in a Republican framing of policy that does not match reality. There is not a hue and cry over a mammoth infrastructure bill. To the contrary, it is super popular. And Republicans might want to stop harping on the tax increases: Those make the bill even more popular.”
AOC Says Infrastructure Plan Is Too Small
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) told MSNBC that President Biden’s $2 trillion+ infrastructure plan should be “way higher.”
Said Ocasio-Cortez: “If we could wave a magic wand, and progressives in the House were able to name any number and get it through — which obviously isn’t the case, but if we’re looking at ideals … we’re talking about, realistically, $10 trillion over 10 years.”
Democrats Brace for Brutal Slog on Infrastructure
Politico: “Absent a seismic political shift, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will have to draft a sprawling bill that can only afford to lose three Democratic votes in the House and zero in the Senate. Because Democrats are expecting to use their budget powers to steer the bill past a Senate filibuster, Biden’s infrastructure plan would also need to survive a slew of procedural hurdles that could further split the party.”
“The infrastructure debate amounts to a political ultra-marathon for Biden and his Democratic-led Congress, a stark contrast with the mostly breezy path to approving Biden’s $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill. Party leaders will be under immense pressure from their base to deliver, while also protecting the political future of their most endangered members, some of whom are already anxious about GOP attacks on proposed tax hikes, ahead of the midterm elections.”
Axios: How Biden is selling his infrastructure plan to Democrats.
It’s Going to Be Infrastructure Year
“President Joe Biden’s first big legislative package sped through Congress. The next one could take at least half a year to pass — if it can get to his desk,” Politico reports.
“Biden and Hill Democrats on Wednesday began a months-long sprint to pass a $2.5 trillion bill to shore up the nation’s physical infrastructure, paid for by hiking taxes on corporations. Republicans are already balking, dismissing Biden’s attempted outreach as disingenuous, and preparing a messaging campaign against the package that will almost certainly force Democrats to go it alone as they juggle competing wish lists from their members across the ideological spectrum.”
John Harwood: Biden made stimulus look easy. Selling tax hikes for infrastructure will be harder.
Biden to Unveil Massive Infrastructure Plan
“President Joe Biden will unveil a $2 trillion proposal Wednesday to transform America’s infrastructure over the next eight years, launching a mammoth legislative offensive to turn a long-running Washington punchline into a legacy-defining policy achievement in his first year in office,” Politico reports.
“Biden will travel to Pittsburgh where he will call for trillions of dollars in investments to rebuild the country’s roads, bridges and transit; improve access to clean water and broadband; expand access to elder and disability care and revitalize American manufacturing. Or, as the White House puts it, the plan would affect how we move, how we live at home, how we care for one another and how we manufacture.”
Washington Post: “The administration’s promises are vast and may prove difficult to enact, even if the effort can get through Democrats’ extremely narrow majority in Congress.”
Playbook: “Finding 10 Republicans to support a bill of this size and with this kind of tax hike is all but hopeless. So it will almost certainly need to go through budget reconciliation to pass.”
Working Together on Infrastructure
Bloomberg: “Labor unions and environmental groups are joining forces to lobby the White House and Democratic congressional leaders to back $4 trillion worth of spending in the coming long-term economic plan — in a sign that sometimes testy relations between the two constituencies are thawing.”
Buttigieg Backtracks on Mileage Tax
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said that neither a gas tax nor a mileage tax would be part of President Joe Biden’s sweeping infrastructure plan to be unveiled on Wednesday, CNN reports.
Buttigieg had previously indicated such a tax “could be part of the mix.”
Buttigieg Has a Bridge to Sell You
Politico: “Buttigieg may be the youngest of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet secretaries and the one with the most on-the-job learning to do. But he also comes with the most prominent reputation — a small-town mayor with big ideas and even bigger ambitions; the type of person who plunges so deep into new subjects that he might spend a casual evening sifting through a digital library on transportation and actually enjoy it.”
“With the White House’s massive infrastructure bill set for its formal unveiling, he and his boss are looking to turn that reputation into a political asset. They want to make him one of the package’s chief pitchmen.”
Vox: Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan, explained.
How Joe Manchin Would Raise Taxes for Infrastructure
NBC News: “He said there should be ‘tax adjustments’ to former President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax law to boost revenues, including by raising the corporate rate from the current 21 percent to at least 25 percent… He also suggested an ‘infrastructure bank’ paid for with revenues, potentially a value-added tax, that would be used for ‘rebuilding America.’”
“Notably, Manchin said the Republican resistance to higher taxes was not a ‘reasonable’ position in an infrastructure negotiation.”
Said Manchin: “Where do they think it’s going to come from? How are you going to fix America?”
Buttigieg Prepares to Sell $3 Trillion Infrastructure Plan
Wall Street Journal: “Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is talking like a small city mayor again as he prepares to help sell the Biden administration’s $3 trillion infrastructure plan to a bitterly divided Congress. Mr. Buttigieg, who served two terms as mayor of South Bend, Ind., said that focusing on the needs of local government will be particularly useful.”
“Mr. Buttigieg said he is confident that the administration can strike a deal, and isn’t above regional flattery to get conservatives on board.”
Air Travel At Highest Level Since Pandemic
Associated Press: “More than 1.5 million people streamed through U.S. airport security checkpoints on Sunday, the largest number since the pandemic tightened its grip on the United States more than a year ago.”
Biden Will Stretch Definition of Infrastructure
Reuters: “Biden and his fellow Democrats hope to expand the definition of infrastructure beyond existing transportation architecture to include items aimed at tackling climate change and its effects, echoing the $2 trillion, 10-year ‘Build Back Better’ proposal floated during his campaign.”
“That includes investments in electric vehicle charging stations, zero-emission buses and zero-carbon electricity generation by 2035, and directing dollars to minority neighborhoods and contractors, part of a pledge to increase racial equity.”
“Democrats have signaled they want to invest billions in creating and refurbishing affordable housing in any package and expand broadband internet access to all Americans, particularly in rural communities.”
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