Republican lawmakers are preparing their own infrastructure proposal as a counteroffer to President Joe Biden’s $2.3 trillion American Jobs Plan.
The still-developing proposal is expected to be considerably smaller and more narrowly focused than Biden’s, in the range of $600 billion to $800 billion, and be funded by “unspecified user fees” that target those who benefit from whatever construction or repair is included in the plan, Politico’s Sam Mintz reported Wednesday.
“The pay-for ought to come from the people who are using it," Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) told reporters Wednesday. “If it’s an airport, the people who are flying. If it’s a port, the people who are shipping into the port. If it’s highways, it ought to be gas if it’s a gasoline-powered vehicle. If it’s an electric vehicle some kind of mileage associated with that electric vehicle that would be similar to a gas tax.”
The meaning of “infrastructure:” Romney’s comments highlight two of the key criticisms of Biden’s plan made by Republicans. First, they don’t want to roll back the 2017 Trump tax cuts or impose new taxes to fund infrastructure spending. Second, they object to the way Biden’s plan covers a wide range of issues, ranging from bridges and highways to housing and elder care, under the rubric of infrastructure.
“What I'd like to do is get back to what I consider the regular definition of infrastructure in terms of job creation,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), the ranking member on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, told CNBC Wednesday. “So that's roads, bridges, ports, airports, including broadband into that, water infrastructure.”
Capito also said that removing what Republicans see as extraneous items from the infrastructure plan would be necessary to win bipartisan support. “If we’re going to do this together — which we want to do and is our desire — we’ve got to find those areas and take away the extra infrastructure areas that the president put into his bill like home-health aids and school building and all of these kinds of things,” Capito said.
White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain met with the bipartisan Problem Solvers group of lawmakers Wednesday afternoon to continue to explore the possibility of bipartisan cooperation on the package.
Multiple smaller bills? One Republican lawmaker said they might break the proposal into separate bills, each focused on a specific area, so to avoid the inclusion of anything unrelated to that issue.
“A general principle for me is that we shouldn't have a huge bill with a bunch of stuff thrown" in, Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE), ranking member of the Senate Commerce Transportation subcommittee, told Politico. “If you want road users to pay for it, have a bill that only deals with roads. If you want waterways to be part of the bill, then you have a bill that only deals with that so you can find appropriate pay-fors if you want a user fee,” Fischer said. “I've always been a strong proponent of going segment by segment.”
Americans express support for Biden’s plan: A new Morning Consult/Politico poll shows that a majority of American voters support Biden’s plan to spend heavily on a wide variety of infrastructure issues while raising taxes on corporations to pay for it.
“Biden’s slate of economic policies, especially his stimulus package, have enjoyed consistently broad support from both Republican and Democratic voters,” Morning Consult said. In the last week, however, Republican support has slipped, likely driven by increasingly vocal opposition to Biden’s plan by GOP lawmakers. Republican voters seem particularly opposed to Biden’s expansive definition of infrastructure, and to his plan to raise corporate taxes to cover costs.
Still, the poll shows solid support for Biden’s big plans, and most voters don’t seem too worried about labeling issues such as child care and internet access as infrastructure. “As long as it’s something they like, the Biden administration can call it whatever they want,” Politico Playbook said.
The chart below shows the levels of support for various categories of spending included in Biden’s proposal. A majority of respondents, including both Democrats and Republicans, say that roads, transportation, housing and internet are infrastructure issues. A majority of respondents, but not a majority of Republicans, also support the inclusion of caregiving and child care, with support dropping to 43% and 40% among GOP voters on those issues. Of the seven categories included in the poll, only one — paid leave — failed to win support from a majority of respondents.
