Biden sees infrastructure compromise, despite Republican 'red line' on
taxes
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[May 13, 2021]
By Jeff Mason and Jarrett Renshaw
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe
Biden said on Wednesday he sees room for a compromise on his proposal
for trillions of dollars in infrastructure spending after meeting with
Republican leaders but will move forward without the opposition party if
necessary.
In their first White House meeting since Biden, a Democrat, took office
in January, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and House of
Representatives Republican leader Kevin McCarthy signaled a willingness
to work with the president on infrastructure but drew the line at tax
increases.
Biden told reporters after the nearly two-hour meeting that he saw some
reason to be optimistic.
"I'm generically encouraged that there's room to have a compromise on a
bipartisan bill that's solid and significant," he told reporters.
In an interview with MSNBC he indicated an interest in passing part of
his package with bipartisan support and part of it without.
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"Let's see if we can get that agreement to kick-start this and then
fight over what's left," Biden said in the interview. "We'll see if I
can get it done without Republicans if need be."
Biden's $2.25 trillion infrastructure bill and a $1.8 trillion education
and childcare plan have faced sharp resistance from Republicans in
Congress, with disagreements over the price tag, scope and funding
proposals.
"You won't find any Republicans who are gonna go raise taxes. I think
that's the worst thing you can do in this economy," McCarthy said after
the talks in the Oval Office. He cited rising gasoline prices as a
reason not to back tax increases.
McConnell said Republicans were "not interested" in reopening a 2017
legislative effort that cut taxes for companies and the wealthy under
former Republican President Donald Trump.
"We both made that clear to the president. That's our red line,"
McConnell said.
Before a pipeline outage caused fuel prices to spike, Republicans and
businesses suggested "user fees" such as raising gasoline taxes instead,
a more traditional form of infrastructure funding.
Biden has expressed concern that such a model would hurt lower-income
Americans. His investment plans, and intention to tax wealthy Americans
and companies to cover the cost, are popular with voters from both
parties.
But recent history does not augur well for a deal.
No Republicans voted for Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief plan that
passed in March. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Democrat, said on
Tuesday the Biden administration was "not going to wait a long time if
we don't see that agreement is possible."
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Biden did not want to raise taxes
on working Americans.
"His bottom line is that inaction is unacceptable, and that he is not
going to raise taxes on the American people who are making less than
$400,000 a year, but he's open to a range of proposals," she told a
briefing.
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President Joe Biden held his first White House meeting with
Republican leaders from Congress on Wednesday in search of common
ground on his proposals to spend trillions of dollars on U.S.
infrastructure, education and childcare.
![](../images/ads/current/centraldirect_lda_SPONSOR_2021.png)
Biden has said he wants to raise the U.S. corporate
tax rate to between 25% and 28%, from 21%, to pay for badly needed
infrastructure.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, said she felt more
optimistic about prospects for a bipartisan infrastructure bill
after the meeting, which she attended.
"We have a different set of values. But what we did agree in the
meeting is: Let's agree on what we're trying to achieve. And then we
can talk about how we pay for it. Let's not lead with a
disagreement. We'll find a way because the public knows that this is
necessary," Pelosi told reporters.
CHENEY EXPULSION
McCarthy came to the White House talks shortly after leading his
House Republican colleagues in expelling Liz Cheney from their
leadership team for rejecting Trump's false claims that Biden stole
last year's election.
McCarthy, who has sought to placate Trump, cast Cheney's dismissal
from the No. 3 Republican leadership post in the House as necessary
to unify Republicans and reclaim control of the House in 2022.
Psaki said the Republicans' support for Trump's false claims would
not get in the way of Biden attempting to work with them.
"The president is no stranger to working with people who he
disagrees with ... or who he has massive fundamental disagreement
with," she said.
Congressional Democrats are giving Biden plenty of room to try to
broker a deal, but they are preparing for the possibility of moving
a massive spending bill along strictly party lines if Republicans do
not join in negotiations, according to congressional and White House
sources.
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Democrats in Congress may struggle, however, to retain the necessary
support of enough of their own members to pass Biden's spending
proposals through both chambers, where they have slim majorities.
They are betting the sheer volume of the spending measures will
include enough attractive items to overcome any internal opposition,
the sources told Reuters.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason and Jarrett Renshaw; additional reporting
by Makini Brice and Susan Cornwell; Writing by Alistair Bell and
Jeff Mason; Editing by Heather Timmons, Rosalba O'Brien and Lisa
Shumaker)
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