The White House’s decision to push twin sprawling infrastructure packages is complicating a pathway to passage and the Biden administration’s messaging strategy.
President Joe Biden unveiled his monster $2.25 trillion “American Jobs Plan” in Pittsburgh Wednesday, along with a corporate tax hike framework, as administration officials said another massive spending bill would soon follow.
But the White House’s decision to divide the packages, bundled together as part of the “Build Back Better” infrastructure platform on which Biden campaigned, so far is confusing lawmakers, lobbyists, and experts alike. The president’s generous “infrastructure” definition not only means he has plenty of what Republicans see as poison pill spending but also a tougher pitch to voters.
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The White House’s bifurcated approach to infrastructure amounts to “new territory,” according to Michele Nellenbach, the Bipartisan Policy Center’s strategic initiatives vice president.
Biden’s second package, marketed as his “American Families Plan,” is better described as the president’s social agenda, she said. But even his first proposal, the “American Jobs Plan,” veers out of the traditional infrastructure policy lane, with its investments in research and development and workforce measures.
Nellenbach predicted the second package would be harder for Congress to pass, given indications it will be laden with policy priorities Republicans oppose, such as lowering the Medicare eligibility age, free community college, and universal pre-kindergarten. Assumptions the plans were split to silo more divisive liberal policies from more traditional infrastructure ones so at least one of the proposals could become law are “probably right,” she said.
“Although Congress is on its own path, so it’s not clear to me how exactly they incorporate what the administration is proposing,” she told the Washington Examiner. “What isn’t clear is what the Republicans do when you get into the pay-for conversation, and how expansive do those conversations become? Is that when you start to bring in the social infrastructure questions? Because that’s where you’ll lose the Republicans.”
“If we can have two separate conversations, if you can have one that sort of focuses on this typical bipartisan infrastructure path and allow them to go through regular order, and allow them to work together and do that, that’s one thing,” she added. “But if you start to bring in some of those other issues that the president has put in these proposals, then you start to lose the bipartisanship.”
Tennessee Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn, for instance, seized on how “not even 6%” of Biden’s first infrastructure package is dedicated to updating roads and bridges and proposes “the largest tax hike in nearly three decades.”
“Our country needs a bipartisan and targeted approach to improving infrastructure,” she said. “President Joe Biden ran on a platform of unity, but since taking office has shown his true colors as an unrestrained partisan.”
The White House hasn’t admitted Biden will likely need to rely on reconciliation to pass one or both of the packages. And that’s even if the Senate parliamentarian permits them to clear two more pieces of legislation with a simple majority vote, meaning without a single GOP member in support. Aides, though, seem resigned to the fact it’s going to be a hard slog to strike a deal before Memorial Day, a timeline laid out Thursday by press secretary Jen Psaki.
The White House is, again, posturing that it’s open to bipartisan negotiations. Biden has already engaged with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and invited Republicans to the Oval Office. Psaki told reporters Thursday staffers have “a little bit more time here to work and have discussions with members of both parties.” And she refused to reveal any of the administration’s red lines as well.
Those talks are complicated by dissent within the White House’s own party. Liberal Democrats, including New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have ripped the “American Jobs Plan” as not being “nearly enough.” Then closer to the ideological center, Biden has to contend with colleagues such as Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.
Manchin, specifically, has urged the White House not to use reconciliation. But the senator may be more willing to compromise on at least one of the proposals thanks to coal mine redemption funding tucked into this week’s package and Biden nominating his wife for a political post.
The White House is encouraging congressional committees to start and continue amending different components.
“It’s an opportunity to lay out in a speech, what our objective is, which is to compete with China, invest in infrastructure,” she said. “And separately lay out in a couple of weeks what we need to do better as a country and as a government to help families address the needs of child care.”
Joseph Kane, a Brookings Institution infrastructure senior research associate, likened Biden’s Pittsburgh speech to the first move in a chess game. It’s a positioning gesture, he explained.
“Now, the House and the Senate are going to get their respective turns to come out with their own plans, and whether those plans include elements of what was introduced, or strip it down, or include new elements, or just hit a brick wall, those are all entirely possible,” Kane said.
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Kane welcomes a comprehensive package outlining a national infrastructure plan. That’s guidance the country’s been missing as it’s tackled the policy in a piecemeal manner, he elaborated. But Biden’s undoing may be encompassing such a broad spectrum of ideas.
“Naturally, because it has more elements, it is going to be more cumbersome politically, especially given the legislative calendar, which is already packed,” Kane said.
