Infrastructure deal slips, GOP pans $1.7T White House offer

Prospects for an ambitious infrastructure deal were thrown into serious doubt late Friday after the White House reduced President Biden’s sweeping proposal to $1.7 trillion but Republican senators rejected the compromise as disappointing, saying “vast differences” remain.

While talks have not collapsed, the downbeat assessment is certain to mean new worries from Democrats that time is slipping to strike a deal. The president’s team is holding to a soft Memorial Day deadline to determine whether a compromise is within reach. Skepticism had been rising on all sides over the lack of significant movement off Biden’s $2.3 trillion plan or the GOP’s proposed $568 billion alternative.

“This proposal exhibits a willingness to come down in size,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki, disclosing the new offer as talks were underway between key Cabinet secretaries and GOP senators at a crucial stage toward a deal.

But after the hourlong meeting, the Republicans quickly rejected the new approach as “well above the range” of a proposal that could win bipartisan support.

The two sides “seem further apart” than when negotiations began, according to a statement from an aide to Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., the lead negotiator for the group of six GOP senators.

The White House and the Republican senators have been in talks ever since Biden met with a core group of Republican negotiators over the possibility of working together on an infrastructure plan. The White House dispatched the transportation and commerce secretaries and top aides to Capitol Hill to meet with the Republicans earlier this week, and they had a follow-up video call Friday.

According to a memo obtained by The Associated Press, the administration’s new approach is cutting more than $550 billion from the president’s initial offer.

But the memo makes clear Biden is not interested in the Republicans’ idea of having consumers pay for the new investments through tolls, gas taxes or other fees.

Instead, the administration is sticking with his proposal to raise corporate taxes to pay for the new investment, which is a red line for Republicans.

 

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3fzRXXz